BL  240  .K4  1914 

Keyser,  Cassius  Jackson, 

1862-1947. 
Science  and  religion,  the 

rational  and  the 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 


THE   RATIONAL    AN 


THE  SUPERRATIONAL 

.lUM  25  1915 

An  Address  Delivered  May  4,  IQl^^^"^      ^     ^"""^ 

BEFORE    THE    PhI    BeTA    KaPPA 

Alumni  in  New  York 


v/ 


By 


CASSIUS  J.  KEYSER,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Adrain  Professor  of  Mathematics  in 
Columbia  University 


New  Haven:   Yale  University  Press 

London:   Humphrey  Milford 

Oxford  University  Press 

MDCCCCXIV 


Copyright,  1914 

BY 

Yale  University  Press 


First  printed  September,  1914, 1000  copies 


PREFACE 

The  following  address  aims  to  suggest  and 
to  sketch  a  new  way  of  thinking  about  old 
things  of  universal  interest.  The  major 
emphasis  falls  upon  the  great  function  of 
Idealization  regarded  in  the  light  of  what 
mathematicians  call  the  method  or  the  pro- 
cess of  Limits.  The  central  thesis  is  that 
this  process  in  the  domain  of  reason  or  of 
rational  thought  indicates  the  reahty  and,  in 
part,  the  nature  of  a  domain  beyond,  a  realm 
superrational,  and  that  this  realm  is  the  ulti- 
mate and  permanent  ground  and  source  of 
the  religious  emotions. 


SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION 


SCIENCE   AND   RELIGION 

THE  RATIONAL  AND  THE  SUPER- 
RATIONAL 

As  for  Knowledge,  I  bear  her  no  grudge;  I  take 
joy  in  the  pursuit  of  her.  But  the  other  things  are 
great  and  shining.* — Euripides. 

No  doubt  you  will  readily  recall  the  famous 
dispute  that  occurred  the  other  day  between 
Protagoras  and  Socrates  as  to  why  it  was 
that  so  understanding  a  people  as  the  Athe- 
nians, though  they  suffered  none  but  experts 
to  speak  in  the  assembly  if  the  question 
before  it  were  one  of  ship-building  or  medi- 
cine or  other  specific  art,  yet  freely  allowed 
everybody  to  have  a  say — carpenter,  cob- 
bler, tinker,  sailor,  passenger,  rich  or  poor, 
high  or  low,  learned  or  unlearned — if  the 
matter  under  consideration  were  a  question 
or  an  affair  of  state.  Why  this  diff erence  .f* 
What  was  the  explanation.^  The  answer, 
said  Socrates,  is  this :  the  Athenians  think 
that  the  various  specific  arts  are  capable  of 
being  taught  and  learned,  but  they  are  under 

*  Translation  by  Professor  Gilbert  Murray. 


2  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

the  impression  that  political  wisdom  and 
virtue  cannot  be  communicated  by  man  to 
man.  Not  so,  responded  Protagoras;  that 
explanation  cannot  be  right.  For  it  is  evi- 
dent, said  he,  and  especially  so  in  their 
rational  practice  of  punishing  evil-doers, 
that  the  Athenians,  like  other  men,  think  the 
virtues  of  statecraft  may  be  acquired  and 
taught.  And  in  the  ability  to  give  and  to 
receive  such  instruction  all  men  have  a  share. 
For,  said  he,  when  Hermes  asked  whether  he 
should  distribute  justice  and  reverence  to  all 
men  or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  technical  arts, 
to  only  a  few,  Zeus  replied :  To  all ;  I  should 
like  them  all  to  have  a  share,  for  else  cities 
cannot  exist  and  the  race  of  man  will  perish. 

And  so,  according  to  Protagoras,  the 
reason  why  the  Athenians,  when  they  met  to 
deliberate  on  matters  of  state,  were  willing 
to  hear  all  men,  was  that,  in  their  belief, 
political  virtue,  instead  of  being,  like  an  art, 
a  privilege  of  a  few,  was  an  obligation  of  all. 

It  may  be  that  a  consideration  analogous 
to  that  advanced  by  the  great  sophist  is 
admissible  on  the  present  occasion.  In  ask- 
ing you  to  listen  to  an  address  on  science 
and  religion  by  one  who  is  not  a  professional 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  3 

student  of  religion,  I  may  perhaps  plead  in 
mitigation,  and  in  consenting  to  hear  me  you 
may  wish  to  plead,  that  religion  is  not  essen- 
tially of  the  nature  of  a  technical  science  or 
art,  to  be  wholly  committed  to  the  charge  of 
experts  and  specialists,  but  belongs  rather 
to  the  general  domain  of  human  wisdom  and, 
like  political  virtue,  like  justice  and  beauty, 
like  intelligence  and  social  order,  is  an  affair 
and  concern  of  us  all. 

Let  me  say  at  the  outset  that  it  is  no  part 
of  my  purpose  to  eulogize  science  or  to  mag- 
nify the  importance  and  value  of  religion. 
It  is  not  my  intention  to  compare  science  and 
religion  to  the  advantage  or  disadvantage  of 
either  of  them.  My  aim  is  to  speak  candidly, 
quite  without  prejudice  or  partisanship, 
though  possibly  from  a  somewhat  unfamiliar 
point  of  view,  of  some  of  the  questions  that 
arise  out  of  the  relations,  or  out  of  what 
many  deem  to  be  the  relations,  between  these 
two  great  interests  of  mankind. 

It  is  probable  that  the  number  of  students 
whose  devotion  to  science  is  devout  enough 
and  solemn  enough  to  be  properly  described 
as  rehgious  far  exceeds  the  number  of  those 
who  bring  to  the  study  of  religion  a  spirit 


4  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

and  method  that  may  properly  be  called 
scientific.  Yet  we  do  not  hear  much  about 
the  religious  study  of  science.  We  do,  how- 
ever, hear  a  great  deal  nowadays  about  what 
is  called  the  scientific  study  of  religion. 
What  is  meant  or  ought  to  be  meant  by  "the 
scientific  study  of  religion"?  There  exists, 
I  believe,  no  little  misunderstanding  regard- 
ing the  matter,  and  it  may  be  well  to  begin 
by  reminding  ourselves  of  an  important  dis- 
tinction. I  am  not  going  to  detain  you  with 
definitions  or  an  attempt  at  definition,  though 
the  distinction  in  question  pertains  to  the 
essential  natures  of  the  great  subjects  we 
are  talking  about. 

Anyone  who  has  given  careful  study  to 
the  method  and  the  structure  of  science  or — 
what  is  more  feasible  in  our  brief  life — to 
the  method  and  structure  of  a  representative 
branch  of  science,  knows  that  the  kind  of 
knowledge  which  is  currently  called  scientific 
is,  in  last  analysis,  knowledge  of  ideas  and 
of  the  relations  among  them.  To  know  a 
branch  of  science,  say  physics  or  mathe- 
matics or  astronomy,  at  a  given  stage  of  its 
development,  is  to  know  a  certain  group  of 
concepts     together   with   the   relations    that 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  5 

bind  them  into  a  logically  organic  whole. 
That  is  why  it  is  said,  and  rightly  said,  that 
the  method  and  the  structure  of  science  are 
conceptual  and  logical. 

Now,  religion,  I  take  it,  is  not  essentially 
an  idea  or  a  concept.  It  is  not  essentially 
a  group  of  concepts  or  a  group  of  them 
together  with  their  logical  interrelations. 
Religion  is  primarily,  essentially  and  ulti- 
mately an  emotion  or,  if  you  prefer,  a  com- 
plex of  emotions.  Fear,  awe,  reverence,  love, 
a  sense  of  mystery,  a  sense  of  union  with  a 
larger  self,  sympathy,  the  touch  and  thrill 
of  a  spiritual  presence — these  things  and 
their  kind  are  not  essentially  ideas,  they  are 
feelings,  sentiments,  emotions.  In  its  essen- 
tial nature  as  a  complex  of  emotions  felt  in 
their  integrity  religion  does  not  belong  to 
the  rational  domain,  it  does  not  pertain  to 
the  field  of  logic.  This  is  not  to  say  that  it 
is  illogical  or  irrational,  for  these  terms 
describe  errors  committed  in  the  realm  of 
ideas.  If  you  wished  to  say  that  religion  is 
hypological  or  subrational,  I  should  have  to 
object.  If  you  wish  to  say  that  it  is  hyper- 
logical  or  superrational,  I  shall  make  no 
objection  at  all.    What  I  desire  to  emphasize 


6  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

here  is  that  religion  is  not  logical:  it  is 
alogical  and  it  is  as  little  rational  as  that 
passion  of  love  or  hate  which  to  gain  its 
object  may  fling  prudence,  calculation  and 
reason  all  to  the  winds. 

Is  it,  then,  impossible  to  study  and  know 
religion  scientifically?  There  is,  as  already 
intimated,  a  subtle  and  important  sense, 
often  neglected,  in  which  it  is  impossible. 
One  who  has  an  emotion  gains,  in  feeling  it, 
a  sense  of  what  it  is  and  signifies  that  scien- 
tific method  cannot  reach.  This  peculiar 
sense  we  may  call  "emotional  knowledge,"  for 
the  want  of  a  better  term,  or  knowledge-in- 
immediate-experience.  Such  knowledge  of 
religion  in  its  essence  a  scientific  man  may 
have  as  well  as  another  but  he  cannot  win  it 
or  have  it  in  his  capacity  as  a  scientific  stu- 
dent. If  he  have  it  he  will  have  it  by  having 
personally  the  appropriate  emotions.  He 
cannot  gain  it  by  concepts  and  logic ;  he 
cannot  formulate  it  in  terms  of  them;  it  has 
no  formula ;  it  does  not  admit  of  being  de- 
scribed or  conveyed  by  reasoned  discourse. 
None  but  a  lover  really  knows  love. 

It  is  obvious  that,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
is  an  equally  important  sense  in  which  reli- 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  7 

gion  may  be  studied  and  known  scientifically. 
In  the  first  place,  a  complex  emotion  admits 
of  being,  in  a  measure,  analyzed.  Such 
analysis  and  a  propositional  account  of  its 
results  belong  to  the  province  of  science.  In 
the  second  place, — and  this  is  more  to  the 
point, — an  emotion,  beyond  the  fact  of  its 
being  felt,  leads  to  manifestations  that  may 
be  seen  and  heard:  not  only  may  it  produce 
effects  and  tokens  in  the  sensible  world, 
exterior  forms  of  life  or  living,  modes  of 
behavior,  trains  of  events  in  the  outward 
light  of  day,  but  it  may  invade  the  realm  of 
thought,  set  going  the  machinery  of  logic, 
modify  old  ideas,  engender  new  ones,  trans- 
form philosophies,  give  birth  and  currency  to 
new  doctrines  and  views  of  the  world.  Every- 
one knows  that  the  emotions  which,  as  emo- 
tions felt  in  their  integrity,  essentially  con- 
stitute that  inner  and  subjective  life  known 
as  religion,  produce,  in  countless  number  and 
variety,  phenomena  having  their  locus  in  the 
outer  world:  physical  postures,  gestures  and 
attitudes,  ceremonies,  customs  and  rites, 
mythologies,  theologies,  temples,  institutions, 
history.  Here  we  undoubtedly  have,  con- 
nected with  religion  as  its  sensible  embodi- 


8  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

ment,  as  its  exterior  manifestation  and  its 
counterpart  in  thought,  a  vast  body  of  inter- 
esting and  diversified  material  that  is,  in 
strictest  sense,  available  for  the  method  of 
science.  If  to  this  external  material  we  add 
the  religious  emotions  themselves  in  so  far  as 
they  are  susceptible  of  psychological  analy- 
sis, we  shall  have  before  us  the  whole  subject- 
matter  of  what  may  properly  be  called  the 
scientific  study  of  religion.  And  it  is  out  of 
the  study  of  this  subject-matter  by  anthro- 
pologists, archeologists,  philologists,  psy- 
chologists, philosophers,  historians  and  others 
that  there  has  come,  as  you  know,  mainly  in 
recent  years,  a  copious  and  increasing  scien- 
tific literature  of  religion. 

Of  this  literature  I  am  not  about  to  offer 
a  review.  By  many  thinkers  and  scholars  it 
is  regarded  as  justifying  a  certain  remark- 
able thesis  respecting  the  relation  of  religion 
to  human  ignorance.  Of  that  thesis  I  shall 
wish  to  speak.  Before  doing  so,  however,  I 
desire  to  ask  what  the  scientific  Hterature  of 
religion  can  tell  us  of  religion  as  personal 
experience.  What  can  it  tell  us  of  religion 
as  "emotionally  known"  to  one  who  has  or 
has  had  immediate  experience  of  the  constit- 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  9 

uent  emotions?  What  is  it  competent  to  tell 
us  of  religion  in  its  essential  nature  as  certain 
emotions  felt  in  their  integrity?  This  ques- 
tion is  answerable  a  priori,  and  the  answer 
is:  nothing  whatever.  That  psychological 
analysis  of  emotions  cannot  tell  us  aught  of 
an  emotion  as  felt  in  its  integrity  is  suffi- 
ciently evident  in  the  fact  that  such  analysis 
involves,  by  the  very  nature  of  its  enterprise, 
the  destruction  of  emotional  integrity. 
Unlike  a  chemist,  such  analysis,  though  it 
can  give  us  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  is  unable 
to  give  us  water.  As  for  that  part  of  the 
literature  which  deals  with  the  externals  of 
religion,  we  need  not  press  our  question.  For 
in  their  relation  to  scientific  method,  the 
exterior  phenomena  of  religion  are  precisely 
on  a  par  with  the  other  phenomena  of  the 
external  world.  Most  external  phenomena — 
wind,  wave  and  color,  forms,  states  and 
transformations  of  matter,  manifestations  of 
light,  heat  and  electricity — are  not,  at  least 
not  in  our  day,  commonly  supposed  to  be 
products  of  emotion.  The  external  phe- 
nomena of  rehgion  are  such  products.  The 
difference  is  striking.  It  requires  some  atten- 
tion to  discern  the  fact  that,  for  scientific 


10  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

method,  the  difference  does  not  exist.  It 
requires  a  little  discernment  and  care  to 
avoid  confusing  our  "emotional  knowledge" 
of  the  religious  emotions  with  scientific 
knowledge  of  their  external  effects  and  to  see 
quite  clearly  that,  for  science,  the  externals 
of  religion  are,  like  other  external  phenom- 
ena, simply  objects  to  be  observed,  collo- 
cated, reduced  to  intelligible  order,  described 
and  theorized  about.  It  requires  a  little  dis- 
crimination to  perceive  that  the  method  of 
concepts  and  logic  affords  no  means  of  feel- 
ing the  origin,  cause  or  source  of  its  subject- 
matter,  but  that,  regarding  this,  the  best  it 
can  do  is  to  guess  and  verify.  We  do  some- 
times flatter  ourselves  that  we  have  "ethe- 
rial"  emotions,  but  the  ether  of  physics  is  not 
an  emotion,  it  is  a  purely  conceptual  thing 
hypothetized  to  account  for  certain  facts  of 
observation.  We  shall  miss  much  if  we  do 
not  see  that  the  scientific  study  of  the  exte- 
riorities of  religion  yields  just  that  kind  of 
knowledge  of  religion  which  the  study  of 
physics  gives  us  of  the  ether.  The  scientific 
method  does  not  require  that  the  student  of 
the  external  phenomena  of  patriotism  or 
love  be  a  patriot  or  a  lover.    For  the  purpose 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  11 

of  such  a  student,  patriotism  or  love  is  not 
an  emotion,  it  is  an  hypothesis.  For  science 
bent  upon  the  investigation  of  certain  objec- 
tive facts,  called  facts  of  religion,  religion  is 
not  a  life,  it  is  not  a  complex  of  felt  emotions ; 
it  is,  like  the  ether  of  physical  theory,  simply 
an  hypothesis  conceptually  fabricated  to 
bind  together  in  intelligible  order  certain 
phenomena  in  the  outer  world. 

In  all  this  iterated  emphasis  upon  funda- 
mental distinctions  and  discriminations,  I 
am  not  ignoring  the  intimate  relationship  of 
ideas  and  emotions.  I  admit  the  mingling  of 
the  two  sorts  of  elements  in  our  psychic  life. 
I  admit  the  possibility  and  the  fact  of  their 
reciprocal  genesis — idea  springing  from 
emotion,  emotion  from  idea.  I  do  not  deny 
that  there  is  even  a  sense  in  which  one  may 
speak  of  "conceiving"  an  emotion,  just  as  I 
admit  a  sense  in  which  an  emotion  born  of 
an  idea  may  be  said  to  "feel"  it.  I  do  deny 
that  an  emotion  and  a  conception  of  it  are 
identical,  just  as  I  deny  that  an  idea  and  a 
feeling  awakened  by  it  are  one  and  the  same. 
And  so  I  deny  that  a  scientific  account  of 
ideas  connected  directly  or  indirectly  with 
the  religious  emotions  is  a  doctrine  of  these 


12  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

as  felt  in  their  integrity,  just  as  anyone 
would  deny  that  the  religious  emotions  felt 
by  Newton  in  contemplating  the  order  and 
glory  of  the  solar  system  are  constituent 
parts  of  astronomy.  I  am  merely  insisting 
that  in  discussions  about  rehgion  discrimi- 
nation is  quite  as  essential  as  it  is  in  other 
matters.  No  one  contends  that  grammar, 
prosody  or  syntax  is  poetry.  No  one  con- 
tends that  Burns's  poem.  To  a  Mouse,  is  a 
biological  essay,  that  Shelley's  Cloud  is  a 
meteorological  disquisition,  or  that  his  Sky- 
lark is  a  contribution  to  ornithology. 

Let  me  add  that  in  what  I  have  been  saying 
of  the  scientific  stud}^  of  religion  my  aim  has 
been  to  delimit  the  significance  of  the  study. 
It  has  not  been  to  detract  in  any  wise  from 
its  importance  and  dignity.  These  are 
admittedly  great. 

I  turn  now  to  the  thesis,  alluded  to  a 
moment  ago,  regarding  the  relation  of  reli- 
gion to  human  ignorance.  The  thesis  is  that 
human  ignorance  is  a  necessary  condition 
and  ground  for  the  existence  of  religion,  that 
religion  has  its  lair  in  the  unilluminated 
jungles  of  the  mind,  that  it  cannot  flourish 
in  the  light  of  "positive  knowledge,"  one  of 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  13 

the  implications  being  that,  if  men  and  women 
were  not  ignorant,  if  their  minds  were  not 
dark,  if  omniscience  were  a  native  gift  or  an 
acquisition  of  mankind,  religion  would  have 
no  source,  no  ground,  no  office  and  no  life. 
The  thesis  is  not  new.  Like  most  theses 
regarding  matters  of  universal  human  inter- 
est, it  is  very  old.  But  in  these  scientific 
times  it  has  gained  a  standing  and  a  cur- 
rency that  it  never  had  before.  Seemingly 
indicated  and  supported  by  much  evidence 
brought  to  Hght  in  the  scientific  study  of 
religion,  the  thesis  is  widely  held  to-day,  not 
by  the  born  sceptic,  the  uninformed,  or  the 
vicious,  but  by  upright  men  and  women  of 
great  scholarship  and  penetration.  For 
example,  in  Professor  Gilbert  Murray's 
delightful  and  highly  edifying  work,  Four 
Stages  of  Greek  Religion,  we  meet  the  doc- 
trine in  its  nakedness,  being  there  told  that 
one  of  the  "characteristic  marks,"  not  of 
Greek  religion  in  particular,  but  of  religion 
in  general,  is  that  it  "essentially  deals  with 
the  uncharted  region  of  human  experience." 
Elsewhere  in  the  volume  the  statement  re- 
appears in  equivalent  forms.  If  the  meaning 
were  thought  to  be  doubtful,  it  is  rendered 


14  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

unmistakable  by  the  following  words.  "A 
large  part  of  human  life,"  says  Professor 
Murray,  "has  been  thoroughly  surveyed  and 
explored ;  we  understand  the  causes  at  work ; 
and  we  are  not  bewildered  by  the  problems. 
That  is  the  domain  of  positive  knowledge. 
But  all  round  us  on  every  side  there  is  an 
uncharted  region,  just  fragments  of  the 
fringe  of  it  explored,  and  those  imperfectly ; 
it  is  with  this  that  religion  deals.  .  .  .  Agri- 
culture, for  instance,  used  to  be  entirely  a 
question  of  religion ;  now  it  is  almost  entirely 
a  question  of  science.  In  antiquity,  if  a  field 
was  barren,  the  owner  of  it  would  probably 
assume  that  the  barrenness  was  due  to  *pollu- 
tion,'  or  offence  somewhere.  He  would  run 
through  all  his^  possible  offences,  or  at  any 
rate  those  of  his  neighbors  and  ancestors, 
and  when  he  eventually  decided  the  cause  of 
the  trouble,  the  steps  he  would  take  would 
all  be  of  a  kind  calculated,  not  to  affect  the 
chemical  constitution  of  the  soil,  but  to 
satisfy  his  own  emotions  of  guilt  and  terror, 
or  the  imaginary  emotions  of  the  imaginary 
being  he  had  offended.  A  modern  man  in  the 
same  predicament  would  probably  not  think 
of  religion  at  aU,  at  any  rate  in  the  earlier 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  15 

stages ;  he  would  say  that  it  was  a  case  for 
deeper  plowing  or  for  basic  slag." 

This  same  doctrine  of  the  essential  depend- 
ence of  rehgion  upon  ignorance  runs  sinu- 
ously through  the  candid  and  magnanimous 
work  of  my  friend  and  coUeague,  Professor 
Shotwell,  on  the  Religious  Revolution  of 
To-Day.  Witness,  for  example,  the  state- 
ment that  science  "renounces  authority,  cuts 
athwart  custom,  violates  the  sacred,  rejects 
the  myths."  Witness  the  further  statement 
that  "science  is  moving  the  mystery  farther 
and  farther  from  the  sphere  of  daily  life  and 
action,  destroying  taboos,  and  building  up 
a  world  of  rational  experience;  and  if  reli- 
gion is  nothing  but  the  submission  to 
mystery,  it  is  doomed."  Again :  "The  battle 
between  science  and  the  old  religion  has  been 
a  real  one,  and  the  result  in  any  case  is  not 
the  defeat  of  science."  In  Professor  Shot- 
well's  book  the  note  is  not  quite  so  confident 
perhaps,  and  hardly  so  clear  as  in  Professor 
Murray's  deliverance;  the  thesis  is  hedged 
about  somewhat  and  a  little  obscured  by 
queries,  conditions,  ifs  and  buts,  yet  it  is 
undoubtedly  present  in  something  more  than 
interrogatory  form  and  is,  I  think,  the  main 


16  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

binding-thread  and  interest  of  this  interesting 
work. 

Though  the  doctrine  is  held,  as  I  have  said, 
by  widely  representative  thinkers  and  schol- 
ars, it  is  not  by  any  means  a  universal  con- 
viction. But  it  is  closely  allied  with  a  con- 
viction or  a  faith  that  is  universal,  and  it 
owes  to  the  alliance  no  little  of  its  significance 
and  much  of  its  force  and  go.  I  mean  the 
unquestioning  faith  of  our  time  in  the  limit- 
less progressibility  of  human  knowledge.  In 
its  fulness  and  universality  this  faith  is  a 
strictly  modern  phenomenon,  a  characteristic 
mark  of  the  age.  Ignoramus  we  admit,  but 
never  ignorahimus.  In  the  philosophic  sense 
of  the  term  we  are  all  of  us  progressionists. 
We  are  all  of  us  unquestioning  believers  in 
the  unlimited  perfectibility  of  man  through 
the  achievements  of  intellect,  through  inven- 
tion and  the  discovery  of  truth,  the  advance- 
ment of  science,  the  growth  and  power  of 
knowledge.  In  the  future  and  possibilities 
of  such  development,  philosophers,  men  of 
science,  men  of  affairs,  the  carpenter,  the 
farmer,  the  grocer,  all  men  and  women, 
learned  and  unlearned,  the  shallow  and  the 
deep,  are  to-day  under  the  sway  of  a  faith 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  17 

that  was  not  so  much  as  dreamed  of  by  even 
the  boldest  thinkers  of  antiquity.  In  this 
regard  the  modern  man  of  the  street  is  more 
than  a  match  for  the  greatest  Athenian  in 
the  age  of  Pericles.  What  of  it?  I  shall  not 
here  endeavor  to  account  for  this  very  re- 
markable faith,  though  a  fairly  satisfactory 
account  of  its  rise  would  not,  I  believe,  be 
difficult  to  give.  I  am  not,  however,  at  pres- 
ent concerned  with  its  ground  or  its  genesis 
but  only  with  the  fact  itself  and  its  implica- 
tions. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  of  these  two  doc- 
trines, neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  when 
taken  alone,  commits  one  who  holds  it  to  any 
theory  or  conclusion  respecting  the  future 
destiny  of  religion.  But  if  the  doctrines  be 
held  in  combination,  if  we  beheve  that  reli- 
gion essentially  depends  on  human  ignorance 
and  at  the  same  time  believe  in  the  limitless 
progressibility  of  human  knowledge,  then  it 
is  obvious  that,  as  serious  thinkers  concerned 
to  know  the  import  of  our  convictions,  we 
are  bound  to  ask  what  is  involved  respecting 
the  fortunes  and  fate  of  religion.  No  doubt 
many  are  prepared  to  answer,  as  indeed 
many  have  answered,  by  saying  that  religion 


18  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

is  doomed.  Some  of  these,  remembering  the 
terrible  things  that  have  been  done  in  the 
name  of  rehgion,  rejoice  in  their  beHef  in  its 
doom ;  to  others,  valuing  religion  as  the  most 
precious  thing  in  life,  the  prospect  is  sorrow- 
ful. It  may  be  that,  in  pondering  the  matter, 
we  shall  find  the  rejoicing  and  the  sorrowing 
premature.  The  question  being  too  vast 
for  detailed  treatment  here,  I  shall  have  to  be 
content  with  offering  you  httle  more  than  a 
delineation. 

You  and  I  may  or  may  not  believe  the 
doctrine  that  religion  depends  essentially 
upon  human  ignorance.  But  it  will  greatly 
simplify  matters  and  facilitate  the  first  part 
of  the  discussion  if  we  assume,  for  the  sake 
of  argument,  that  the  thesis  is  true.  Let  us, 
then,  for  the  present,  grant  as  a  postulate,  to 
use  a  geometric  term,  that  religion  does  essen- 
tially deal  with  the  uncharted,  and,  turn- 
ing to  the  faith  of  our  time  in  the  unlimited 
expansibility  of  human  knowledge,  let  us  ask 
what  ground  there  is  in  it  or  under  it  to 
justify  hope  or  fear  that  rehgion  is  doomed. 
A  conviction  or  a  belief  that  is  universal,  a 
leading  idea  of  an  age,  is  always  vague  and 
is  held  uncritically.     Therein  is  the  secret  of 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  19 

its  sway.  When  subjected  to  criticism,  it  is 
certain  to  suffer  change,  gaining  clarity, 
form  and  definition  at  the  expense  of  its  certi- 
tude and  power.  I  have  no  doubt  that  our 
potent  and  nebulous  creed  regarding  the 
progressibility  of  knowledge  is  destined  to 
illustrate  this  fact.  And  one  of  the  evidences 
is  that  this  very  statement  will  be  looked  upon 
by  many  as  treason  in  the  camp  of  science, 
as  a  wicked  assault  upon  the  holiest  faith 
that  ever  inspired  the  heart  of  an  age.  For, 
like  religion,  science  has  taboos  of  its  own — 
its  spirit  is  sacred  and  its  hope,  however 
extravagant,  must  not  be  touched. 

Regarding  the  future  of  science  many 
persons  hold  forth  as  if  its  boundless  advance- 
ment were  something  inevitable  in  the  nature 
of  things,  the  very  pet  and  protege  of  des- 
tiny, fought  for  by  the  stars  to  realize  on 
this  sublunary  planet,  through  the  agency 
of  man,  a  dream  of  omniscience,  a  purpose 
of  being,  older  than  the  foundations  of  the 
world.  I  confess  myself  unable  to  feel  such 
confidence  and  enthusiasm.  The  Future  can 
not  be  longer  than  the  Past  has  been. 
Here  we  are,  not  the  last  survivors,  I  hope, 
but  certainly   among  the  latest  of  a  biped 


20  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

race  that  for  probably  a  quarter,  or  perhaps 
a  half,  milHon  years  has  been  strugghng  in 
the  gloomy  depths  of  a  boundless  universe  of 
infinite  complexity.  And  now  what  do  we 
know  of  it?  We  have  had  indeed  some  pre- 
cious experience,  most  of  which  has  been 
forgotten  and  lost  beyond  recovery.  Yet 
considering  the  great  odds  that  have  been 
against  us,  especially  considering  how  short 
the  time  since  our  ancestors  ceased  to  be 
quadrupeds  and  learned  to  carry  their  heads 
above  their  feet,  may  we  not  claim  that, 
taken  absolutely,  the  amount  of  our  knowl- 
edge is  really  great  and  that  the  rate  of  its 
growth  has  been  rapid  .^  Of  course,  com- 
pared with  absolute  ignorance,  any  amount 
of  knowledge,  however  small,  is  great.  But 
if  human  knowledge  and  the  rate  of  its 
growth  are  to  be  regarded  as  cosmic  phe- 
nomena, then  such  computation  of  the  age 
of  our  race  is  far  from  just.  It  is  essential 
to  bear  in  mind  that  what  we  are  and  have 
been — quadruped,  fish  or  fowl,  animal,  plant, 
inorganic  stuff,  conscious  or  unconscious, 
ether  perhaps — stretches  back  through 
countless  eons  of  beginningless  time.  It  is 
essential  to  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  thus 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  21 

lineage  of  a  past  Eternity.  And  if  we  do  not 
forget  this,  if  we  will  but  be  at  the  pains  to 
conceive,  if  only  dimly,  the  innumerable  suc- 
cession of  ages  that  it  has  taken  to  contrive 
the  faculty  of  our  little  reason  and  to  pro- 
duce on  this  planet  the  flickering  gleams  that 
we  call  human  knowledge  and  understanding, 
we  shall  have  reason  to  doubt  whether  the 
production  of  science  has  really  been  a  cosmic 
specialty  and  shall  wonder  rather  if  it  may 
not  be  but  an  evanescent  spark  accidentally 
struck  out  by  collision  in  the  blundering 
career  of  an  aimless  and  lawless  world.  At 
all  events,  if  human  knowledge  be  viewed  as 
the  destined  aim  of  the  course  of  time,  no  one 
can  name  a  fraction  small  enough  to  express 
the  average  rate  of  its  growth  in  the  past. 
You  may  wish  to  say,  however,  that  all 
this  refers  to  the  past  and  need  not  be  dis- 
puted, whilst  our  concern  is  with  the  present 
and  especially  with  the  future.  Let  us,  then, 
turn  at  once  to  face  the  problem  in  its  rela- 
tion to  coming  time.  Be  our  present  knowl- 
edge regarded  as  little  or  much,  it  is  certain 
that  round  about  us  on  every  side  lies  the 
unexplored,  the  region  of  the  uncharted,  the 
great  domain  which  according  to  our  postu- 


22  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

late  is  the  source  and  support  of  religion. 
How  far  does  it  extend?  How  big  is  it? 
For  we  are  obliged  to  speak  of  it  in  meta- 
phorical terms.  The  answer  is,  that  in  scope 
and  in  complexity  of  content  the  uncharted 
is  infinite,  and  infinite  of  highest  order. 
That  it  is  so  could,  I  believe,  be  demonstrated, 
if  that  were  required,  but  I  shall  assume  it 
as  not  being  hable  to  denial  or  dispute.  The 
meaning  is  that  the  questions  to  be  asked  and 
answered,  the  problems  to  be  propounded 
and  solved,  the  secrets  to  be  disclosed,  the 
truths  to  be  discovered,  the  jungles  to  be 
cleared  and  drained,  the  mysteries  to  be  dis- 
pelled, constitute  an  infinite  multitude,  un- 
countable and  immeasurable  in  finite  terms. 
At  once  we  must  ask  whether  all  that  is 
contained  in  this  transfinite  domain,  hid  by 
the  covering  pall  of  our  ignorance,  is  intrin- 
sically susceptible  of  being  brought  into 
light.  Is  all  of  the  unknown  intrinsically 
knowable?  We  cannot  be  certain,  but  for 
the  sake  of  argument  I  shall  assume  that  it 
is.  And  now  we  must  ask  the  question: 
Given  any  one  whatever  of  the  things  in  this 
domain  of  unknown  but  knowable  things,  how 
is  it  going  to  get  known?     Broadly  answers 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  23 

the  creed  of  our  age :  The  progressibility  of 
human  knowledge  is  hmitless.  I  venture  to 
say  that  not  one  in  ten  thousand  of  those 
who  confidently  repeat  the  creed  in  this  or  an 
equivalent  form  has  been  at  the  pains  to 
acquire  any  definite  conception  of  what  the 
words  mean.  What  do  they  mean?  They 
mean,  for  one  thing,  that  any  closed  or 
bounded  subdivision  whatever  or  nook  of  the 
uncharted,  no  matter  how  far  it  lies  beyond 
the  borders  of  present  knowledge,  will  in  the 
course  of  time  be  reached  by  advancing 
science  and  be  explored;  they  mean  that, 
whatever  question  be  possible,  no  matter  how 
remote,  it  will  at  some  time  be  asked  and 
answered  by  man.  It  may  be  so.  The  fact 
that  our  sense  of  ignorance  grows  with 
knowledge,  the  fact  that  the  successful 
answering  of  one  question  brings  a  hundred 
new  ones  into  view,  does  not  disprove  it.  It 
only  puts  it  in  the  light  of  an  interesting 
paradox.  Tristram  Shandy  may  indeed 
require  a  year  to  describe  the  events  of  any 
given  day  of  his  life;  yet,  if  he  continues  to 
Hve  and,  beginning  with  any  day,  continues 
to  write  the  events  of  his  life,  there  will  be 
no  specific  event  of  all  those  in  his  endless 


24  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

career    but    will    at    some    definite    time    be 
written.     But  in  implying  that  any  problem 
whatever  within  the  domain  of  the  uncharted 
is  bound  sooner  or  later  to  be  propounded 
and  solved  by  man,  our  creed  makes,  uncon- 
sciously    no     doubt,     a     very     questionable 
assumption.     We  have  indeed  granted  that 
the   unknown   is   intrinsically   knowable,   but 
the  creed  assumes  that  whatever  is  intrinsi- 
cally knowable  is  humanly  knowable.     This 
assumption  is  extremely  doubtful  and  cannot 
be  granted.     It  is  far  from  evident  that,  for 
the  intellect  of  man,  every  specific  knowable 
is  convertible  into  a  known.     Upon  a  little 
reflection  anyone  should  see  the  possibility, 
and  what  is  to  me  a  high  probabiHty,  that 
much  or  even  most  of  the  knowable  is  only 
knowable    superhumanly,    just    as    much    of 
what    is    humanly   knowable    is    not    felinely 
knowable   or   caninely  knowable  or  equinely 
knowable,  or  knowable  to  fishes,  earthworms 
or  snails. 

I  shall  never  forget  a  scene  I  witnessed  a 
few  years  ago.  Walking  with  my  wife  along 
a  street  of  this  city  in  the  subdued  and  slant- 
ing light  of  the  setting  sun,  my  companion 
suddenly    blanched    and    veered.      Instantly 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  25 

the  cause  was  evident:  a  large  white  dog 
viciously  pursuing  diagonally  across  the 
street  a  handsome  kitten  running  its  best 
for  life.  What  to  do,  a  moment's  doubt,  to 
help  might  be  to  hinder,  too  late  in  any  case. 
The  kitten  overtaken  in  midstreet,  about  to 
be  seized,  suddenly  wheels  about,  rears  upon 
its  hind  feet,  ears  laid  back  flat,  eyes  flashing 
fire  like  those  of  a  maddened  hawk  defending 
its  young,  strikes  the  dog's  nose  again  and 
again,  dodges,  side-steps,  retreats,  advances, 
strikes  again,  quick  as  lightning  leaps  to  the 
dog's  side,  then  upon  its  back,  runs  forward 
and  down  between  its  ears  over  its  face  to 
the  ground,  wheels  about  and  strikes  again, 
repeating  all  the  tactics,  performing  the 
program  thrice  in  a  minute,  sees  the  enemy 
confused  and  disconcerted,  turns  like  a  flash, 
makes  again  for  its  home  in  a  basement,  the 
dog  pursuing,  both  rush  down  the  steps  and 
disappear.  I  follow  quickly,  fearing  the 
worst.  Behold!  The  kitten  has  escaped  by 
a  corridor,  entered  a  room,  come  to  the 
front,  and  is  now  pressing  its  little  white 
breast  against  the  iron  grating  of  an  open 
window,  triumphantly  striking  out  at  its 
angry,   puzzled   and   defeated   enemy.      The 


26  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

bearing  of  the  scene  is  evident.  Think  of  the 
prowess,  the  finesse  of  faculty,  the  perfect 
action  and  reaction,  the  wondrous  instinct, 
intelligence,  knowledge,  displayed  by  the 
victor.  And  yet  how  circumscribed  its 
range,  confined  within  just  a  little  sphere 
never  to  be  penetrated  by  such  an  idea,  for 
example,  as  that  of  its  being  mentioned  in 
a  lecture  or  that  of  an  elHptic  function,  a 
flying  machine  or  a  printing  press.  Man, 
being  at  the  top  of  animal  intelligence  in  our 
httle  world,  finding  here  no  superior  species 
with  which  to  compare  himself,  assumes,  quite 
uncritically,  that  whatsoever  is  knowable  is 
knowable  to  him,  that  his  present  faculties 
in  respect  of  kind  and  range  require  nothing 
but  time  to  extend  the  light  and  dominion  of 
human  knowledge  beyond  any  specific  point 
however  remote  in  the  infinite  dark  of  the 
unexplored.  Nevertheless  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that,  even  supposing  him  to  have  endless 
time  at  his  command,  the  sphere  of  his  utmost 
attainable  knowledge,  though  far  larger 
than  that  of  any  lower  animal,  yet  is  as  defi- 
nitely limited  as  that  of  a  fish  or  a  cat.  Man 
has  some  powers  or  faculties  for  knowing 
that  the  beasts  do  not  possess.     Why  should 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  27 

he  assume  that  his  faculties  are  in  kind  the 
highest  possible  or  the  highest  actual?  And 
even  if  they  were,  why  assume  that  he  has 
them  in  the  highest  possible  degree? 

At  this  point  some  acute  enquirer  may 
wish  to  ask  whether  the  sphere  of  the 
humanly  knowable  might  not  be  limited  and 
yet  be  infinite.  The  answer  is,  It  might. 
But  this  by  no  means  implies  that  it  would 
contain  the  totality  of  what  is  knowable. 
The  sphere  of  the  humanly  knowable  may 
indeed  at  once  include  an  infinite  multiplicity 
and  yet  exclude  a  multiplicity  vaster  still, 
just  as,  to  employ  a  famihar  illustration,  the 
infinitude  of  points  matching  in  one-to-one 
fashion  the  integers  in  the  endless  series  of 
cardinal  numbers  is  included  in  the  yet 
vaster  infinitude  of  all  the  points  that  con- 
stitute a  line.  To  the  possibility  here  recog- 
nized I  hope  to  return  at  a  later  stage  of  the 
discussion.  At  present  I  wish  to  invite  your 
attention  to  another  alternative,  namely, 
that  the  probably  limited  sphere  of  the 
humanly  knowable  may,  in  addition  to  being 
limited,  be  finite  as  well.  I  know  of  nothing 
to  invalidate  such  a  supposition.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  supported  by  considerations 


28  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

of  weight.  If  we  reflect  that  human  knowl- 
edge is  of  an  organic  unitary  character  by 
virtue  of  which  the  whole  as  it  grows  must, 
like  a  living  organism,  preserve  a  kind  of 
symmetry  involving  some  just  proportional- 
ity of  parts ;  if  we  reflect  that  consequently 
a  part  cannot  indefinitely  flourish  in  isola- 
tion but  demands  a  like  prosperity  of  adja- 
cent parts;  if  we  reflect  that,  as  the  parts 
continue  to  grow  in  number,  complexity  and 
magnitude,  the  danger  increases  of  their  suf- 
fering for  the  want  of  vital  correlation  and 
that  the  whole  they  constitute  will  as  a  whole 
be  increasingly  liable  to  the  fortunes  of  a 
growing  organism  dependent  upon  cultiva- 
tion but  already  become  too  vast  for  compe- 
tent control  and  superintendence  by  a  single 
human  mind;  if  we  reflect  that  paths  of  dis- 
covery lead  always  through  the  known,  that 
they  lengthen  with  the  growth  of  knowledge, 
meantime  multiplying  their  branches  and 
intersections,  becoming  steeper  and  steeper 
and  more  bewildering;  if  we  reflect  that  the 
difficulties  of  knowledge-producing  investiga- 
tion thus  tend  to  increase  rapidly  as  it  suc- 
ceeds and  knowledge  accumulates,  so  that 
already  it  takes  the  better  part  of  a  life  for 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  29 

a  fairly  good  mind  to  gain  the  knowledge 
and  master  the  technique  essential  to  re- 
search in  any  well-worked  field;  if  we  reflect 
that  meanwhile  the  capacity  of  the  human 
mind  to  know  does  not  increase  with  the 
demands  that  growing  knowledge  makes  upon 
it;  if  we  reflect  that,  although  knowledge  is 
an  increasing  function  of  time,  the  law  of  its 
growth,  if  indeed  there  be  such  a  law,  awaits 
discovery ;  if  we  reflect  that,  notwithstanding 
science  is  to-day  progressing  at  a  high  and 
even  accelerating  speed,  yet  there  are  as 
indicated  retarding  forces  at  work;  if  we 
reflect  that,  on  account  of  these,  there  may 
come  a  time,  remote  or  near,  when  the  rate 
of  discovery  shall  yield  to  a  law  of  negative 
acceleration,  gradually  slowing  down  more 
and  more  as  the  years  go  by;  if  we  consider 
these  things  and  such  as  these,  we  cannot  fail 
to  see  clearly  the  possibility  or  even  some 
probability  that  there  exists  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  a  fixed  and  finite  limit  to  the  pos- 
sible advancement  of  science,  a  predetermined 
finite  maximum,  an  outer  bound  that  it  can 
never  pass  beyond. 

Is  the  hypothesis  gloomy  or  depressing? 
Certainly   not   for  religion,   for,   on  beyond 


30  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

that  outer  bound,  the  Uncharted,  the  sup- 
posed source  and  support  of  religion,  would 
exist  in  all  its  infinitude  forever.  Nay,  even 
that  part  of  the  uncharted  which  lies  within 
the  bound,  though  it  would  grow  smaller  and 
smaller  under  the  continued  encroachment  of 
knowledge,  could  never  fail  quite  utterly. 
And  here,  strangely  enough,  we  see  in  the 
hypothesis  good  cheer  for  science  too.  For 
to  suppose  that  there  exists  at  finite  remove 
an  outer  bound  to  the  possible  growth  of 
knowledge  does  not  imply  that  the  growth 
will  ever  cease.  It  may  go  on  forever.  We 
know  that  there  are  countless  laws  in  accord- 
ance with  any  one  of  which  a  variable  may 
steadily  grow  forever,  approaching  asymp- 
totically as  the  ages  pass,  but  never  attain- 
ing, much  less  surpassing,  some  fixed  and 
finite  magnitude  prescribed  in  advance  as  the 
variable's  superior  limit.  And  just  as  a 
Freshman  may  be  led  to  understand  that  a 
variable  geometric  or  numerical  magnitude 
may,  conformably  to  some  definite  familiar 
law  of  growth,  never  cease  to  grow,  adding 
increment  unto  increment  in  endless  succes- 
sion, and  yet  remain  always  within  the  com- 
pass  of  a   finite  extent,  so  we  may  under- 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  31 

stand  that  the  growing  body  of  human 
knowledge — conveniently  represented  in  im- 
agination by  the  image  of  an  expanding 
sphere — may,  after  a  period  of  accelerating 
growth,  then  yield  perpetual  obedience  to 
some  law  like  that  of  a  decreasing  geometric 
progression,  and  accordingly — unless  the 
human  intellect  shall  fail — continue  to 
expand  forever,  remaining,  nevertheless, 
inferior  to  a  second  finite  sphere  concentric 
with  the  first  and  serving  to  represent  the 
superior  limit  of  its  potential  magnitude. 

Would  it  not  be  possible  to  give  the  pro- 
gressionist creed  of  our  age  an  intelligible 
interpretation  within  this  limiting  sphere? 
It  would  be  perfectly  possible,  namely,  by 
saying  that  within  the  sphere  there  is  no 
element  of  the  unknown  so  remote  from  the 
center  as  not  to  be  reached  at  some  time  by 
the  spreading  light  of  knowledge.  And  this 
interpretation  is  entirely  true  and  valid,  but 
it  is  very,  very  far  from  what  the  creed  is 
intended  to  mean,  for  the  creed  is  intended 
to  cover,  not  merely  the  unknown  within  a 
finite  sphere,  however  vast,  but  any  point 
whatever  of  the  uncharted,  any  definite 
region  or  zone  of  the  unexplored. 


32  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

I  propose  now,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
to  abandon  the  hypothesis  that  the  sphere  of 
the  humanly  knowable  is  finite.  I  will  sup- 
pose it  to  be  infinite.  At  the  same  time,  and 
again  for  the  sake  of  argument,  I  will  sup- 
pose, what  I  have  hitherto  held  to  be 
extremely  doubtful,  that  whatever  is  intrin- 
sically knowable  is  humanly  knowable.  And 
thus  allowing  our  progressionist  creed  about 
knowledge  the  largest  scope  it  could  possibly 
claim,  I  now  propose  to  ask.  What  in  view  of 
it  is  the  prospect  of  religion? — not  forget- 
ting that,  according  to  our  initial  postulate, 
religion  essentially  deals  with  the  uncharted 
region  of  human  experience  and  thus  essen- 
tially depends  on  human  ignorance.  The 
problem  is  not  difficult.  Let  us  get  clearly  in 
mind  the  matters  about  which  we  must  think. 
We  have  to  think  of  certain  things  which  we 
may  call  quantities  or  magnitudes.  One  of 
them  is  the  infinite  domain  of  the  uncharted. 
Another  is  time.  Another  is  human  knowl- 
edge, a  variable  that  increases  with  time,  but 
whose  present  value  or  amount  is  finite. 
Finally,  there  is  the  rate  of  the  growth  of 
knowledge.  This,  too,  is  finite,  and  I  assume 
that  it  will  continue  to  be  so,  the  abstract 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  33 

possibility  that  the  speed  of  advancing 
science  may  at  length  become  infinite  being 
too  improbable  for  serious  consideration.  I 
fancy  your  thought  leaps  ahead  of  my 
speech,  anticipating  alike  the  reasoning  and 
the  conclusion.  The  infinite  realm  of  the 
uncharted  is  to  shrink  as  knowledge  grows. 
Present  knowledge  is  finite.  Its  rate  of 
growth  is  finite  and  will  remain  so.  It  fol- 
lows that  after  the  lapse  of  any  finite  length 
of  time,  however  long,  the  amount  of  then 
accumulated  knowledge,  though  it  may  be 
immense,  yet  will  be  finite.  How  much  of  the 
uncharted  will  remain?  The  answer  is.  An 
amount  precisely  as  great  as  before,  just  as 
if,  beginning  with  the  number  one,  we  sup- 
pose wiped  out  from  the  endless  series  of 
cardinal  numbers  any  succession  of  integers, 
however  finitely  long,  the  multitude  remain- 
ing will  be  exactly  as  numerous  as  before,  for 
the  first  one  not  wiped  out  may  be  marked  1, 
the  second  2,  and  so  on  forever.  If  from  a 
finite  magnitude,  a  finite  magnitude  be  taken, 
the  original  is  diminished.  But  to  diminish 
an  infinite  magnitude,  it  is  always  necessary, 
though  not  always  sufficient,  to  take  away 
an  infinite  amount.     So  vast  is  the  universe 


34  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

of  the  unknown,  that  knowledge  may  grow 
for  any  finite  time  at  any  finite  rate  without 
diminishing  human  ignorance  one  whit.  That 
statement  is  indeed  paradoxical,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  scientifically,  even  mathemati- 
cally sound.  What,  then,  is  the  upshot.?  It 
is  this:  the  creed  of  the  limitless  progressi- 
bility  of  human  knowledge  may  be  allowed 
the  largest  possible  interpretation  and  valid- 
ity, generation  after  generation  centers  of 
knowledge  may  continue  to  multiply  where 
new-born  wonder  may  take  its  rise  and  put 
forth  antennae  to  feel  the  touch  of  a  thrilling 
world,  the  advancement  of  science  may  pro- 
ceed far  beyond  any  prescribed  point  or  goal, 
and  yet  the  Uncharted,  the  source,  it  is  said, 
and  support  of  religion,  will  continue  to 
surround  us  on  every  side  as  vast  and  deep 
and  mysterious  as  the  infinite  abysses  of 
space. 

It  ought  to  be  pointed  out  that  in  winning 
this  conclusion  we  have  not  availed  ourselves 
of  certain  near-lying  considerations  that  are 
graver,  perhaps,  than  any  of  those  adduced. 
We  have  hitherto  supposed  that  the  time 
which  knowledge  has  at  its  command  is  end- 
less.    Such,  however,  is  almost  certainly  not 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  35 

the  case.  Endless  time  is  long.  In  the  course 
of  the  ages  past,  the  making  and  unmaking 
of  worlds  has  probably  been  as  common  a 
phenomenon  as  the  birth  and  death  of  flies. 
We  may  as  well  remember  that  we  are  in  a 
universe  where,  driven  by  incalculable  forces, 
countless  worlds  of  flame  with  innumerable 
hosts  of  attendant  bodies  great  and  small 
whirl  and  plunge,  Hke  monsters  of  the  deep, 
in  a  shoreless  ocean  of  space.  In  a  universe 
where  suns  are  born  and  die,  what  catas- 
trophe may  not  happen  in  the  course  of  time  ? 
"Time,"  says  Virgil,  "runs  away  with  all 
things,  including  the  mind."  Certainly  the 
fortunes  of  our  own  planet  are  bound  up  with 
those  of  a  solar  system  of  which  everlasting 
stability  cannot  be  affirmed.  The  famous 
problem  of  three  bodies  subject  to  Newtonian 
force  has  indeed  at  length  been  solved  theo- 
retically. Eventual  collision  is  among  the 
possibilities  even  when  the  moving  bodies  are 
supposed  to  be  nothing  but  points.  The 
chances  of  a  clash  are,  of  course,  very  much 
greater  when  the  moving  bodies,  instead  of 
being  mere  points,  are  in  reality  as  huge  as 
Earth  or  Mars  or  Jupiter.  The  far  more 
complicate  problem  of  n  bodies,  where  n  is 


36  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

greater  than  three,  has  not  been  solved  even 
theoretically.  There  is  every  reason  to 
suppose,  however,  that  the  danger  of  dis- 
aster increases  with  the  increase  of  n.  Of 
several  hundred  solar  planets  our  own 
belongs  to  the  group  of  the  major  eight. 
Now,  we  should  not  forget  that  human 
knowledge  is  a  plant  of  Earth,  and  in  talking 
about  the  possibility  of  its  limitless  growth, 
it  is  but  fair  to  remember  that  the  race  of 
man,  with  the  huge  rushing  ship  that  bears 
him  along  shifting  courses  amid  swift-moving 
planets  and  stars,  may  be  destined  to  perish, 
sooner  or  later,  in  a  crushing  collision  of 
worlds.  It  is  true  that  in  such  a  catastrophe 
religion,  too,  would  perish,  but  the  uncharted 
would  survive. 

Neither  should  we  fail  to  reflect  that  the 
case  would  be  essentially  the  same  if,  instead 
of  collisional  destruction  of  our  planet,  the 
sun  were  to  die  and  the  life  of  mother  Earth 
were  to  perish  in  snow  and  ice.  Recent  physi- 
cal discoveries  in  relation  to  radium  and  to 
the  constitution  and  energy  of  atoms  have 
indeed  much  mitigated  the  confidence  with 
which  not  long  ago  eminent  men  of  science. 
Lord  Kelvin  for  example,  were  wont  to  pre- 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  37 

diet  as  a  far-ofF  event  so  luring  a  doom.  Yet 
we  have  to  allow  that  an  icy  winding  up  of 
sublunary  affairs  is  more  than  a  mere  possi- 
bility. You  may  perhaps  recall  Anatole 
France's  graphic  description  of  what  would 
happen  in  that  event.  "When  the  sun  goes 
out — a  catastrophe  that  is  bound  to  be — 
mankind  will  have  long  ago  disappeared. 
The  last  inhabitants  of  earth  will  be  as  desti- 
tute and  ignorant,  as  feeble  and  dull-witted, 
as  the  first.  They  will  have  forgotten  all  the 
arts  and  all  the  sciences.  They  will  huddle 
wretchedly  in  caves  alongside  the  glaciers 
that  will  then  roll  their  transparent  masses 
over  the  half-obliterated  ruins  of  the  cities 
where  men  now  think  and  love,  suffer  and 
hope.  All  the  elms  and  lindens  will  have  been 
killed  by  the  cold ;  and  the  firs  will  be  left  sole 
masters  of  the  frozen  earth.  The  last  des- 
perate survivors  of  humankind — desperate 
without  so  much  as  realizing  why  or  where- 
fore— will  know  nothing  of  us,  nothing  of  our 
genius,  nothing  of  our  love ;  yet  will  they  be 
our  latest-born  children  and  blood  of  our 
blood.  A  feeble  flicker  of  the  regal  intelli- 
gence of  nobler  days,  still  lingering  in  their 
dulled  brains,  will  for  a  while  yet  enable  them 


38  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

to  hold  their  empire  over  the  bears  that  have 
multiplied  about  their  subterranean  lurking- 
places.  Peoples  and  races  will  have  disap- 
peared beneath  the  snow  and  ice,  with  the 
towns,  the  highways,  the  gardens  of  the  old 
world.  With  pain  and  difficulty  a  few  isolated 
families  will  keep  alive.  Women,  children,  old 
men,  crowded  pell-mell  in  their  noisome  caves, 
will  peep  through  fissures  in  the  rock  and 
watch  the  somber  sun  mount  the  sky  above 
their  heads ;  dull  yellow  gleams  will  flit  across 
his  disk,  like  flames  playing  about  a  dying 
brand,  while  a  dazzling  snow  of  stars  will 
shine  on  all  the  day  long  in  the  black  heavens, 
through  the  icy  air.  This  is  what  they  will 
see;  but  in  their  heavy  witlessness  they  will 
not  so  much  as  know  that  they  see  anything. 
One  day  the  last  survivor,  callous  alike  to 
hate  and  love,  will  exhale  to  the  unfriendly 
sky  the  last  human  breath.  And  the  globe 
will  go  rolling  on,  bearing  with  it  through 
the  silent  fields  of  space  the  ashes  of  human- 
ity, the  poems  of  Homer  and  the  august 
remnants  of  the  Greek  marbles,  frozen  to  its 
icy  surfaces.  No  thought  will  ever  again  rise 
toward  the  infinite  from  the  bosom  of  this 
dead  world."    For  inviting  you  to  glance  at 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  39 

so  somber  a  picture  I  offer  you  no  apology 
but  this :  namely,  the  questions  and  creeds  we 
are  discussing  oblige  us  as  candid  students  to 
try  to  look  afar. 

It  remains  to  mention  briefly  another  pos- 
sibility, a  classic  one  that  has  haunted  the 
minds  of  thinkers  from  the  earliest  times, 
figuring  in  speculation  from  Empedocles  and 
Epicurus  down  to  Herbert  Spencer:  a  pos- 
sibility that  looks  both  forward  and  back- 
ward, embracing  at  once  the  total  succession 
of  events  that  Time  can  present.  I  mean 
the  possibiHty  that  our  universe  is  what 
mathematicians  know  as  a  cyclic  group.  I 
may  intimate  the  character  of  the  great  con- 
ception clearly  enough  perhaps  by  means 
of  a  simple,  tiny,  trivial  example.  Imagine 
three  things,  a,  fo,  c,  to  be  so  operated  upon 
that,  no  matter  in  what  order  they  be 
arranged,  each  of  them  shall  continue  to  be 
replaced  by  the  one  that  follows  it.  Thus 
we  shall  get  a  h  c,  b  c  a,  c  a  by  a  b  c,  and  so 
on  in  endlessly  repeated  cycle,  hke  that  of 
morning,  noon,  evening,  midnight  and  morn- 
ing again,  hke  that  of  the  seasons,  hke  that 
of  seed,  plant,  fruit  and  seed  again,  hke 
countless  other  imperfect  illustrations  to  be 


40  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

found,  more  or  less  disguised,  everywhere  in 
the  world  about  us.  Now  the  speculation  of 
many  thinkers  has  been  that  the  cosmic  flux, 
the  stream  of  the  world's  events,  instead  of 
moving  endlessly  forward,  forever  presenting 
the  new,  may  be  in  fact  a  cyclic  stream, 
completing  a  circuit  in  a  long  but  finite 
period  of  time  and  so  presenting  in  un- 
changed order  again  and  again,  without 
ceasing,  all  and  only  things  and  events  that 
are  extremely  old,  having  already  traversed 
the  self-same  round  infinitely  many  times. 
Whether  the  speculation  be  true  or  not,  this 
great  concept  of  the  Cosmic  Year  with  its 
doctrine  of  "nothing  new"  has  long  since  won 
for  itself,  like  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  remi- 
niscence, the  glory  of  living  expression  in 
the  enduring  form  of  verse,  as  in  the  fourth 
eclogue  of  Virgil,  for  example,  in  th"e  mighty 
poem  of  Lucretius,  and  in  Chidher,  the  beau- 
tiful poem  of  Riickert.  Time  does  not  permit 
us  to  dwell  upon  the  manifold  implications  of 
this  hoar  and  luring  hypothesis,  but  in  its 
bearing  upon  our  subject  one  thing  at  least 
is  evident:  even  if  it  were  supposed  that  in 
such  a  cyclic  cosmic  scheme  knowledge 
might,  in  the  course  of  a  given  cycle,  explore 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  41 

the  uncharted  completely  and  that  thereupon 
religion  might  cease  to  be,  yet,  that  cycle 
once  completed,  knowledge  itself  would  have 
vanished  and,  again  starting  from  non- 
existence, it  would  be  obliged,  along  with  new- 
born religion,  to  repeat  again  the  same  old 
tale  of  strife  and  struggle  up  the  steep  and 
winding  course  of  cycUc  evolution.  "Every 
art,"  said  Aristotle,  "and  every  kind  of 
philosophy  have  probably  been  found  out 
many  times  up  to  the  limit  of  what  is  possible 
and  been  again  destroyed."  In  this  connec- 
tion I  must  allow  myself  one  additional 
word.  A  very  large  part  of  the  uncharted 
consists  of  what  we  do  not  know  of  the  Past, 
and  unto  that  part  are  added,  with  each 
passing  hour,  increments  compared  with 
which  the  recoveries  of  modem  historical 
research  are  infinitely  trifling.  Even  under 
the  most  favorable  hypothesis,  namely  that 
of  the  cycle  and  cosmic  year,  there  is  no 
evidence  or  prospect  whatever  that  the  great 
and  growing  infinite  body  of  what  lies  buried 
in  the  dark  of  the  ages  gone  will  ever  come 
forth  into  the  light  of  human  knowledge. 

Herewith    I    close    the    first    part    of   my 
argument.     We  have   contemplated   a   wide 


42  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

variety  of  considerations,  some  of  them  essen- 
tially minute  and  subtle,  others  open  and 
vast  like  the  infinite  secularities  with  which 
they  deal.  All  of  them  seem  to  converge 
upon  an  inevitable  conclusion.  It  is  that  the 
great  creed  of  our  age  regarding  the  limit- 
less progressibility  of  human  knowledge 
admits  of  no  interpretation  to  justify  hope 
or  fear  that  religion  is  under  a  "steadfast 
ordinance  of  doom,"  even  when  we  grant,  as 
for  the  sake  of  argument  we  have  hitherto 
granted,  that  religion  "essentially  deals  with 
the  uncharted"  and  thus  essentially  depends 
for  sustenance  upon  human  ignorance. 

But  that  postulate  is  to  be  no  longer 
granted.  It  is  to  be  now  withdrawn  and 
henceforth  denied  as  being  contrary  alike  to 
reason  and  to  fact. 

It  is  obvious  that  for  an  omniscient  being, 
for  one  knowing  all,  there  could  be  no  such 
thing  as  a  region  uncharted,  no  such 
thing  as  an  "un-understood."  I  am  not 
about  to  affirm  or  deny  the  existence,  possi- 
bility or  actuality  of  such  a  being.  I  know 
a  little  something  of  the  difficulties  involved 
and  I  do  not  intend  to  hazard  the  issue  of 
this  discussion  by  dogmatic  and  categorical 


I 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  43 

statements  that  many  of  you  might  challenge 
and  that  in  any  case  are  inessential  to  the 
support  of  my  argument.  In  relation  to 
this  matter  I  shall  confine  myself  to  the 
hypothetical,  keeping  well  within  safe  terri- 
tory by  saying  only,  in  mathematical  fashion, 
that,  "if  so  and  so,  then  so  and  so."  And  now 
I  say  that,  if  religion  depends  essentially 
upon  ignorance,  an  omniscient  being  could 
not  be  religious.  Yet  religion,  being  a  fact 
in  the  world,  is  one  of  the  things  that  an 
omniscient  being,  in  order  to  be  omniscient, 
would  have  to  know  and  know  fully  and  pre- 
cisely, in  generality  and  detail,  in  its  hidden 
recesses  and  its  open  reaches,  in  its  every 
light  and  shade  and  color  and  tone.  In 
knowing  all  about  and  of  religion,  an  omnis- 
cient being  would  know,  among  much  else, 
just  what  religion  signifies  and  is  to  one  who 
feels  the  religious  emotions  in  their  unana- 
lyzed  integrity.  In  other  words,  such  a  being 
would  have  what  I  have  called  "emotional 
knowledge"  of  religion  and,  being  omniscient, 
would  have  it  in  every  respect  precisely  as  it 
is  for  any  specific  man  or  woman.  But  to  feel 
a  rehgious  emotion  in  its  integrity  is  to  be 
religious.     Accordingly  an  omniscient  being. 


44  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

in  feeling  the  religious  emotions  as  they  must 
needs  be  felt  to  know  them  as  they  are  known 
to  a  man  or  a  woman  in  feeling  them,  would 
thus  be  an  essentially  religious  being,  one 
having  genuinely  religious  experience.  And 
thus  it  is  seen  that  the  doctrine  of  the  essen- 
tial dependence  of  religion  upon  ignorance 
plainly  involves  a  logical  contradiction,  and 
this  means  that  it  is,  as  said,  contrary  to 
reason. 

I  now  maintain  that  the  doctrine  is,  as 
also  said,  contrary  to  fact.  In  order  to  clear 
the  ground  and  avoid,  if  may  be,  the  possi- 
bility of  misunderstanding,  let  me  begin  by 
making  certain  concessions  and  avowals.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  the  forms  of  reli- 
gion, its  external  embodiments  in  rite,  insti- 
tution and  doctrine,  vary  very  greatly  with 
time,  place  and  circumstance.  I  do  not  dis- 
pute that,  among  the  circumstances  that 
have  fashioned  these  forms  and  that  con- 
tinue to  mold  and  modify  them,  by  far  the 
most  effective  determinant  is  the  growth  and 
dissemination  of  knowledge.  I  do  not  deny 
that,  owing  chiefly  to  the  influence  of 
advancing  knowledge,  many  forms  of  reli- 
gion have  passed  away  in  the  long  course  of 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  45 

time  and  that  many  of  its  forms  are  to-day 
in  process  of  passing.  If  we  are  to  speak 
of  religions  instead  of  Religion,  I  admit  that 
the  hght  of  knowledge  has  destroyed  reli- 
gions and  is  doing  so  to-day.  I  do  not  deny 
that,  if  religion  be  identified  with  its  forms, 
if  we  refuse  to  distinguish  between  its  life 
and  the  visible  manifestations  of  its  life,  then 
we  are  obliged  to  say:  As  knowledge  ad- 
vances, religion  must  recede;  the  twain  are 
incompatible.  But  I  deny  the  justice  of  the 
supposed  identification.  The  form  of  a  life 
may  undergo  striking  transformation  whilst 
the  life  still  remains  substantially  invariant, 
without  breach  of  continuity,  without  decli- 
nation of  vigor  or  any  tendency  to  degrada- 
tion or  decay.  On  the  contrary,  change  of 
form  may  signify  development,  waxing 
vitality,  continuing  adjustability  to  chang- 
ing environment,  increase  of  level,  ameliora- 
tion, augmentation  of  prosperity  and  power. 
Consider  the  sensible  or  outward  manifesta- 
tions of  Wonder,  for  example,  or  Curiosity. 
They  continually  change,  and  the  forms  of 
enquiry,  culture  and  education  vary  greatly, 
with  time,  place  and  circumstance,  especially 
responding  to  the   altering  demands   of  in- 


46  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

creasing  knowledge,  but  no  one  contends  on 
such  account  that  the  animating  life  of  the 
changing  forms  is  pursuing  a  destined  course 
to  extinction.  Nay,  Knowledge  itself,  by 
virtue  of  a  principle  inherent  in  it,  is  con- 
stantly undergoing  transformation  of  its 
external  form  and  body,  but  we  do  not  argue 
that,  therefore,  it  is  the  nature  of  knowledge 
to  be  drying  up  its  own  springs  and 
approaching  death  in  a  desert. 

But,  one  may  ask,  admitting  all  this,  is  it 
not  true  that  the  effect  of  knowledge  upon 
religion  goes  much  deeper  than  its  forms, 
its  exterior  manifestations,  its  sensible  em- 
bodiments? Does  not  knowledge,  does  nob 
the  light  of  ideas,  penetrate  to  the  very  core 
of  religion,  affecting  the  very  emotions 
themselves,  the  feeling  of  which  in  their 
native  integrity  is  religion's  life,  religion 
itself.?  The  answer  is.  Yes.  I  do  not  deny 
it.  I  admit  that  the  light  of  knowledge,  the 
radiance  of  ideas,  reaches  the  religious  emo- 
tions as  it  reaches  other  emotions,  affecting 
them  profoundly,  controlling  them  in  a 
measure,  helping  to  determine  the  occasions 
of  their  rise  and  subsidence,  giving  them  new 
directions,     changing     their     temperatures, 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  47 

velocities  and  moments,  altering  their  inten- 
sities, emphases  and  colors.  I  admit  the 
deep  and  complicate  interplay  and  reciprocal 
action  of  ideas  and  feelings,  of  emotions  and 
knowledge ;  I  admit  that  the  two  natures  are 
alike  subject  to  development  and  evolution. 
But  I  deny  that  the  affectional  nature, 
though  it  is  modified  by  intellect,  is  destroyed 
by  it:  I  deny  that  knowledge  destroys  emo- 
tions. Who  will  submit  a  list  of  the  emotions 
that  have  been  destroyed  by  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  years  of  advancing  knowledge.? 
Charles  Darwin,  it  is  true,  has  told  us  that 
through  long  exclusive  addiction  to  the  study 
of  science,  he  lost  his  joy  in  poetry,  but  is  not 
that  loss  to  be  ascribed  to  the  atrophy  of  a 
faculty  long  unused  and  the  hypertrophy  of 
other  faculties  rather  than  to  any  essential 
incompatibility  between  science  and  song.'' 
Nearly  all  great  men  of  science,  Darwin 
included,  have  been,  potentially  and  essen- 
tially, poets.  For  poetry,  the  most  perma- 
nent and  ubiquitous  influence  in  life,  pervades 
science  too;  there  is  a  poetry  of  sheer  ideas, 
and  in  the  light  of  pure  thought  there  gleam 
ideal  architectures  to  galvanize  the  spirit  to 
the  highest  mood.    What  knowledge  destroys 


48  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

is  ignorance  but  not  emotion.  If,  largely 
through  the  effect  of  increasing  knowledge, 
I  learn  to  prefer  the  violin  to  the  tom-tom, 
or  a  symphony  of  Beethoven  to  the  rude 
melody  of  a  savage,  I  do  not  infer  that 
knowledge  is  destroying  in  me  the  emotional 
life  of  music.  If,  largely  through  gain  of 
knowledge,  I  come  to  prefer  the  Mona  Lisa  to 
a  rude  portrait  of  an  Indian  squaw  or  learn 
to  value  the  Parthenon  more  highly  than 
some  rude  African  temple,  I  do  not  conclude 
that  knowledge  is  incompatible  with  the 
emotions  of  beauty  and  worth.  If,  through 
acquisition  of  new  ideas,  the  Esquimau  shall 
cease  to  feel  it  a  pious  duty  to  kill  his 
father  and  mother  ere  decrepitude  disquali- 
fies them  for  a  happy  life  beyond,  and  learns 
to  feel  instead  that  he  ought  rather  to 
lengthen  their  years  even  at  the  expense  of 
his  own,  we  shall  hardly  infer  that  his  ethical 
emotions  are  in  process  of  extinction.  In  all 
such  cases  what  we  infer  is,  not  decadence, 
but  amelioration.  I  contend  that  so  we 
should  think  of  the  religious  emotions.  As 
science  advances,  as  knowledge  penetrates 
and  spreads,  these  change  but  they  do  not 
die.     Their  objects  change.     Sympathy  with 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  49 

a  clique  or  a  club  or  a  tribe  or  a  local  church 
may  grow,  under  the  influence  of  growing 
knowledge,  into  a  living  sense  of  universal 
brotherhood  including  our  kin,  the  beasts. 
The  things  we  fear,  the  things  we  love,  the 
things  that  awaken  our  reverence  and  awe, 
the  things  that  mystify  or  thrill,  these  may 
change  and  pass,  but  out  of  the  infinite 
resources  of  life  others  replace  them,  and  the 
emotions  themselves,  grown  wiser  and  purer 
in  accordance  with  a  law  of  spirit,  survive  all 
the  vicissitudes  and  continue  to  live  and 
flourish  in  ampler  relation  and  higher  form. 
To  say  that  ignorance  is  the  fons  et  origo 
of  the  religious  emotions,  to  say  that  reli- 
gion has  its  lair  in  the  unilluminated  jungles 
of  the  mind,  is  simply  not  true.  A  far  deeper 
philosophy  is  required.  The  cosmic  times 
and  spaces  of  modem  science  are  more  im- 
pressive and  more  mysterious  than  a  Mosaic 
cosmogony  or  Plato's  crystal  spheres.  Day 
is  just  as  mysterious  as  night,  and  the 
mystery  of  knowledge  and  understanding  is 
more  wonderful  and  awesome  than  the  dark- 
ness of  the  unknown.  No  one  that  has  seri- 
ously sought  to  understand  knowledge  or  to 
know  the  ultimate  nature  of  understanding; 


60  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

no  one  that  has  tried  to  penetrate  the  secret 
recesses  of  logical  implication,  to  thread  the 
inmost  mazes  of  ideal  relationships  and  to 
feel  in  their  essence  the  subtile  affinities  of 
thought ;  no  one  that  has  keenly  realized  the 
indissoluble  interlocking  of  thought  with 
thought  independently  of  temporal  circum- 
stance or  human  purpose  or  will ;  no  one  that 
has  clearly  beheld  in  the  silent  light  of  medi- 
tation great  cathedrals  of  doctrine  poised  in 
eternal  calm  above  and  upon  the  spiritual 
basis  of  a  few  select  ideas;  no  one  that  thus 
has  had  a  vision  or  even  a  glimpse  of  the 
abiding  reality  under  the  changeful  garment 
of  the  world :  no  such  person  can  fail,  I  think, 
to  perceive  and  to  feel  that  the  supreme  reli- 
gious emotions  of  reverence  and  love  and  awe, 
so  far  from  depending  upon  ignorance,  are 
but  elevated,  amplified  and  deepened  by  the 
mysteries  and  the  wonders  more  and  more 
disclosed  in  the  brightening  light  of  knowl- 
edge. Not  in  the  uncharted  but  in  the 
charted,  not  in  the  unknown  but  in  the 
known,  not  in  ignorance  but  in  knowledge, 
it  is  there,  in  the  light,  that  we  shall  find,  if 
we  look,   an  ever-deepening  well  of  wonder 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  51 

and  thrill  and  mystery  and  reverence   and 
awe. 

Finally,  we  may  admit  the  fact  itself  and 
seek  its  explanation.  If  we  do  so,  if  we 
enquire  why  it  is  that  the  light  of  knowledge, 
instead  of  being  inimical  to  religion,  is 
destined  to  be  its  purer  and  fuller  source,  my 
answer,  which  is  the  culminating  thesis  of 
this  address,  will  have,  I  venture  to  believe, 
a  significance  beyond  its  bearing  on  religion. 
I  desire  to  submit  it  for  your  candid  con- 
sideration. It  is  commonly  supposed  that 
the  sphere  of  our  experience  and  psychic  life 
is  composed  of  two  zones,  the  domain  of 
Sense  and  above  it  the  domain  of  Reason.  If 
we  disregard  the  lower  zone,  if  we  take  away 
that  great  subrational  domain  which  we 
share  jointly  with  the  beasts,  it  is  commonly 
supposed  that  what  remains,  though  but 
little  of  it  has  been  actually  explored,  yet  is 
under  the  potential  dominion  of  reason, 
intrinsically  open,  that  is,  to  thoroughgoing 
conquest  and  occupation  through  the  ra- 
tional means  and  processes  of  concept  and 
logic.  That  creed  I  am  convinced  is  false. 
I  maintain,  I  believe  upon  scientific  ground, 
that  the  domain  of  reason,  the  great  realm 


52  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

of  whatever  is  open  to  exploration  by  ra- 
tional means,  is  infinitely  far  from  containing 
all  that  lies  above  the  basal  zone  of  sense.  My 
thesis  is  that  the  Rational  implies  and  reveals 
the  Superrational,  and  that  the  latter  is  the 
source  of  influences  which,  if  but  dimly  seen, 
yet  are  keenly  felt  in  the  deeper  centers  and 
higher  moods  of  life.  I  contend  that,  as 
rational  knowledge  advances,  as  the  light  of 
reason  spreads  and  intensifies,  it  more  and 
more  reveals  evidences  and  intimations  that 
over  and  above  reason's  domain,  overarching 
and  compassing  it  about,  there  lie  regions  of 
reality  unto  which  the  rational  nature  of  man 
indeed  aspires,  approximates  and  points,  as 
unto  its  ideal  and  over-world,  but  which  it 
can  never  attain,  much  less  subdue  to  the 
ways  of  common  knowledge,  or  the  familiar 
forms  of  thought.  Even  the  darkest  mind 
must  needs  have,  it  seems,  at  least  some  dim 
sense  of  such  a  region  or  realm  whence  pro- 
ceed vibrations,  so  to  say,  that  find  way 
across  the  far-ofF  borders  into  reason's  realm 
and,  breaking  against  the  forms  of  being 
there,  kindle  into  strange  radiance  of  a 
higher  world. 

Here  is  no  question  of  the  uncharted  in 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  53 

ordinary  sense;  it  is  not  a  question  of  a 
realm  where  logic  has  not  yet  been ;  it  is  a 
question  of  a  realm  into  which  logic  cannot 
go,  of  a  realm  lying  beyond  the  bounds  eter- 
nally fixed  by  the  principles  of  logic  itself. 
What  and  where  are  the  evidences  for  the 
existence  and  reality  of  such  an  outlying 
zone  of  being?  And  what  is  their  form  and 
guise?  The  evidences,  I  have  said,  are  to  be 
found  in  the  rational  domain  itself:  the  inti- 
mations, the  indications  of  superrational 
reahty  shine  more  and  more,  I  maintain,  in 
the  brightening  sheen  of  reason  itself.  They 
present  themselves,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the 
manner  and  guise  of  idealizations,  in  the 
ways  of  winged  pursuit  of  the  "ever-flying 
perfect" ;  they  are  figured  forth  in  the  form 
of  unending  sequences  or  series  amenable  to 
logic,  traversing  the  rational  domain,  and 
indicating,  by  the  laws  of  their  march 
through  the  world  of  reason,  limits  that  lie 
beyond.  Can  the  evidences  be  clearly  pro- 
duced here  in  court?  Not,  I  fear,  without 
some  slight  recourse  to  the  use  of  technical 
terms  bearing  unfortunately  the  unloved 
savor  of  mathesis.  Innocence  of  mathemati- 
cal technique  is  doubtless  venial  in  all  but  the 


54  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

professed  mathematician.  To  surrender, 
however,  or  run  away  before  every  token  of 
precise  and  rigorous  thinking  is  the  shame 
of  culture.  I  say  it  the  more  boldly  here, 
being  of  course  well  aware  that  this  occasion 
cannot  illustrate  that  reproach.  Certainly 
in  speaking  to  an  audience  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
one  need  not  fear  or  hesitate  to  serve  oneself, 
as  occasion  demands,  with  an  idea  drawn 
from  the  science  of  Freshman  days,  especially 
when  its  significance,  though  preeminent  in 
mathematics,  pervades  moreover,  did  we  but 
see  it,  the  whole  of  our  mental  life,  from  the 
prosaic  activity  of  the  counting-house  to  the 
airiest  spirit  of  song. 

How  beautiful  a  thing  is  a  circle.  In  a 
circle  let  there  be  inscribed  an  equilateral 
triangle,  then  a  regular  hexagon,  then  a 
polygon  of  a  dozen  sides,  and  so  on  forever, 
going  from  step  to  step  of  the  summitless 
scale  by  the  simple  device  of  ever  doubhng 
the  number  of  sides.  Infinitely  many  are  the 
polygons  so  obtained.  Each  of  them  has  a 
certain  size,  a  certain  area ;  the  first  is  the 
smallest,  the  second  is  next,  and  so  on  forever. 
Let  us  suppose  all  these  areas  arranged  in  a 
series,  in  the  order  of  size,  beginning  with  the 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  55 

smallest.  Indeed,  they  are  already  so 
arranged.  There  now  lies  before  us  for  our 
contemplation  a  literally  endless  sequence  of 
ever-increasing  terms,  of  ever-increasing 
polygonal  areas.  In  respect  of  size,  these 
approach  nearer  and  nearer,  as  close  as  we 
please,  to  the  size  of  the  circle's  area,  yet 
they  remain  inferior  to  it  forever.  And  so 
we  say,  in  technical  language,  that  the 
circle's  area  is  the  sequence's  limit.  It  is 
important  to  note  that  the  sequence's  limit 
is  not  a  term  in  the  sequence,  for  all  these 
terms  are  polygonal  areas — shapes  bounded 
by  polygons — ^but  that  of  the  circle  is  not, 
for  the  circle  is  not  a  polygon.  The  totality 
of  all  areas  whatever  that  are  bounded  and 
shaped  by  polygons  I  shall  call  the  Domain 
of  Polygonal  Areas.  Within  that  domain 
are  contained,  among  many  other  polygonal 
areas,  all  the  terms  of  our  sequence  but  not 
the  sequence's  limit :  the  circle's  area  does  not 
belong  to  the  domain  of  polygonal  areas  but 
is  a  thing  upon  its  border.  The  terms  of  the 
sequence  may  be  viewed  as  the  steps  of  a 
path  beginning  with  the  first  term  and  thence 
proceeding  on  and  on,  within  the  domain  of 
polygonal  areas,   step  after  step   endlessly, 


56  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

on  and  on  out  towards  the  border,  getting 
closer  and  closer  to  it,  just  as  near  as  we 
please,  and,  though  never  attaining  it,  yet 
indicating  by  the  law  of  approach  an  unmis- 
takable something  that  lies  thereupon,  namely 
the  circle's  area.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  clear 
presentation,  within  a  given  domain,  of 
something  that  is  not  within :  we  have  a  clear 
presentation,  by  the  law  of  an  inner  sequence, 
of  a  hmit  on  the  rim — of  an  ideal,  if  you 
please,  which,  so  long  as  we  operate  within 
the  domain,  may  be  aspired  unto,  approached 
and  pursued  forever,  but  can  never  be  at- 
tained. In  this  simple  and  familiar  example 
we  have  a  miniature  pattern  of  what  is  to 
be  the  scheme  of  our  larger  thought.  Similar 
examples  abound  and  others  of  them  would 
serve  just  as  well.  It  will,  however,  be  suffi- 
cient, I  think,  to  cite  but  one  more,  for  "the 
clue,  famihar  to  our  hand,  lengthens  as  we 
go,  and  never  breaks." 

I  will  take  my  second  example  in  the  field 
of  Number.  Consider  the  whole  numbers 
together  with  our  everyday,  familiar,  vulgar 
fractions.  These  whole  numbers  and  frac- 
tions together  constitute  a  domain  which  for 
the  purpose  of  this  discussion  we  may  call  the 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  57 

Domain  of  Common  Number.  Let  us  now 
agree  to  operate  within  this  domain  and  see 
if  we  can  find  there,  within,  any  certain  pre- 
sentations or  indications  of  definite  things 
that  are  not  within.  Here,  as  in  the  fore- 
going illustration,  our  instrument  and  guide 
will  be  what  we  have  called  a  sequence.  In 
sequences  our  chosen  domain  of  operation  is 
immensely  rich.  For  suppose  the  numbers 
arranged  in  the  order  of  size  beginning  with 
zero.  Then,  for  example,  the  ensemble  of 
all  those  numbers  that  precede  any  given 
number  of  the  domain  will  constitute  a  se- 
quence. I  now  invite  you  to  think  of  a  very 
obvious  and  special  sequence,  one  however 
that  represents  an  exceedingly  important 
type,  for  there  are  many  types.  The  se- 
quence I  wish  you  to  consider  is  composed 
of  all  the  numbers  whose  squares  are  each  of 
them  less  than  the  number  2.  Observe  that, 
just  as  the  squares  of  the  sequence-numbers 
approach  as  near  as  we  please  to  2  but  never 
reach  it,  so  the  numbers  themselves,  the  roots 
of  the  squares,  approach  as  near  as  we  please 
to  the  square  root  of  2  but  never  reach  the 
root.  Accordingly  we  say,  again  using 
technical  speech,  that  the  square  root  of  2 


68  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

is  the  sequence's  limit.  As  in  the  preceding 
illustration,  so  also  here  it  is  important  to 
observe  that  the  limit  is  not  a  number  in  the 
sequence,  being  indeed  neither  a  whole  num- 
ber nor  a  vulgar  fraction:  the  limit  is  not  a 
thing  within  the  domain  of  operation,  the 
domain  of  common  number.  The  sequence 
itself  hes  wholly  within,  but  its  limit  is  on  the 
border.  With  respect  to  the  domain,  the 
limit  is  a  sheer  ideal,  a  creature  of  idealiza- 
tion, an  ever-flying  perfect  which  no  pursuit, 
however  tireless  and  swift,  along  the  path  or 
course  of  the  sequence  leading  towards  it, 
can  ever  overtake. 

All  this,  you  may  wish  to  say,  is  suffi- 
ciently subtle  and  is  doubtless  scientific,  but 
what,  pray,  can  be  its  bearing  upon  religion  ? 
I  think  we  may  see  that  its  bearing,  not  only 
upon  religion,  but  upon  a  right  under- 
standing of  our  psychic  life  in  general,  is 
wide,  weighty  and  deep.  In  the  two  familiar 
illustrations  that  we  have  drawn  from  the 
great  fundamental  doctrines  of  Number  and 
Space,  we  behold,  in  its  simplicity,  purity  and 
perfection,  a  situation  that,  far  from  being 
confined  as  commonly  supposed  to  Mathe- 
matics,  is   really   present,   in   more   or   less 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  59 

disguised  and  imperfect  form,  everywhere 
throughout  the  range  and  scope  of  our  men- 
tal activity  and  life.  "What  must  be  said 
may  as  well  be  said  twice  o'er."  Adequate 
statement  economizes  argumentation.  And 
so,  in  the  interest  of  elaboration  and  empha- 
sis, for  the  matter  is  very  important,  I 
repeat  that  the  situation  in  question  is  liter- 
ally omnipresent.  I  say  that,  if  we  will  but 
look  attentively,  we  shall  find  that  domains, 
similar  in  general  structure  to  those  I  have 
pointed  out,  exist  here,  there  and  yonder  in 
countless  number  and  variety,  constituting 
the  vast  and  complicate  world  of  our  mental 
life;  we  shall  find  that  each  of  the  domains 
is  carved  out  and  its  boundaries  determined 
by  the  nature  of  its  content,  by  the  kind  of 
objects  or  spiritual  entities  that  make  it  up, 
so  that  two  domains  differ  and  are  indeed 
two  by  virtue  of  a  difference  in  the  character- 
istic properties  of  their  respective  contents; 
we  shall  find  that  two  domains  are  thus  the 
actual  or  potential  homes  of  two  differing 
doctrines  and  that  generalization  consists  in 
noting  what  is  common  to  them;  we  shall 
find  that  the  entities  of  a  given  domain,  the 
objects  of  sense  or  of  thought  in  which  its 


60  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

content  consists,  are,  in  general,  disposed  or 
disposable  in  the  order  of  endless  sequences; 
we  shall  find  that,  in  most  cases,  such 
sequences  serve  as  paths  or  tracks  on  which 
the  mind,  operating  in  the  domain,  may  pass 
from  a  given  object  in  it  outward  towards 
the  border;  we  shall  find  that,  though  the 
border  be  not  thus  attainable,  though  our 
approximation  to  it  be  at  best  but  asymp- 
totic, yet  the  law  of  approach  indicates  the 
existence  and  in  part  the  nature  of  objects 
upon  the  border;  we  shall  find  not  only  that 
the  border  of  a  domain  is  thus  indicated  from 
within  by  the  so-called  "method  of  limits," 
by  the  process  of  idealization,  but  that  the 
border  of  a  domain  is  itself  a  domain,  a 
domain  whose  content  differs  from  that  of 
the  former  in  some  essential  respect,  as  the 
border  domain  of  curves,  for  example,  differs 
from  that  of  broken  lines ;  we  shall  find  that 
the  domain  thus  serving  as  the  border  of  a 
given  domain,  far  from  having  to  be  as  an 
"imaginary  line"  bounding  a  field,  is  often 
a  vaster  and  more  complex  affair,  greater  in 
wealth  of  spiritual  content  than  the  realm  it 
serves  to  bound,  just  as,  for  example,  the 
domain  of  polygonal  areas  is  inferior  to  its 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  61 

border  of  curved  areas,  and  just  as,  for 
another  example,  the  domain  of  common 
number  is  far  less  extensive  and  rich  than  the 
realm  of  numbers  that  constitute  its  rim. 
Such,  in  brief,  are  a  few  indications  of  what 
appears  to  be  a  just  and  helpful  vision  of 
the  make-up  and  ways  of  our  psychic  life: 

Realms  of  spirit  everywhere, 
Nest  in  nest,  lair  in  lair: 
Ideals  within  are  reals  without. 
Encompassing  fields  are  compassed  about. 

Nothing  short  of  a  pretty  large  volume 
would  suffice  to  present  in  its  full  significance 
the  indicated  view  of  the  world.  My  present 
concern  is  to  relate  the  view  to  the  question 
of  the  existence  and  reality  of  a  domain  of 
superrational  being.  Consider  first  the  sub- 
rational  domain — the  great  fundamental 
zone  of  Sense — in  its  relation  to  the  field  of 
the  rational — the  great  domain  of  Reason. 
I  am  not  going  to  discuss  the  general  ques- 
tion of  reason's  dependence  upon  the  facts  of 
the  sensible  world.  What  I  wish  to  point  out 
here  is  this:  namely,  that  the  countless  phe- 
nomena in  the  world  of  sense  form  and  pre- 
sent   to    us    there    innumerable     series    or 


62  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

sequences  having  for  their  limits  ideal  things 
that  belong  only  to  the  world  of  reason:  the 
realm  of  things  perceived  has  for  its  border 
the  realm  of  things  cor^ceived,  the  world  of 
things  perceived  being  like  an  immense  and 
diversified  map  glistening  everywhere  with 
endless  courses  or  tracks  approaching 
asymptotically  an  ideal  region  beyond.  The 
evidence  abounds  on  every  hand,  constituting 
a  genuine  embarrassment  of  riches.  For 
example,  in  the  world  of  sense,  matter  pre- 
sents itself  in  various  degrees  of  permanence 
of  form,  gaseous,  liquid  and  solid;  but,  as 
Tresca  and  others  have  shown,  what  we  call 
solids  can  be  made  to  flow  in  jets  from  the 
bottom  of  vessels,  like  a  liquid :  perfect  solids, 
like  perfect  gases,  are  nothing  but  limits, 
sheer  ideals  without  existence  in  the  world  of 
sense,  pure  concepts  in  the  domain  of  reason. 
For  another  example,  consider  the  beautiful 
phenomena  of  crystallization.  In  respect  of 
formal  perfection  the  multitudes  of  crystals 
found  in  the  sensible  world  constitute  a 
variety  of  sequences  approximating  more 
and  more  nearly  to  certain  forms,  as  the 
cubic,  the  tetragonal,  the  orthorhombic,  and 
others,  but  these  forms  are  never  actually 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  63 

realized  in  the  subrational  world  of  sense: 
they  are  there  but  indicated  as  limits  beyond, 
as  ideals  having  existence  only  in  the  domain 
of  concepts,  the  world  of  reason.  A  per- 
fectly symmetric  tree  exists  only  in  the 
rational  world,  it  is  but  a  dream,  an  ideal 
thing  indicated  as  the  limit  of  a  sequence 
found  in  the  forests  of  the  world  of  sense. 
So,  too,  with  harmonies  of  sound:  harmonies 
that  are  heard  are  imperfect,  but  the  ideal 
pursued  by  them,  the  flying  goal  of  their 
aspiration,  the  dream  of  their  dreams,  is  not 
a  sound;  it  belongs  to  the  world  of  reason; 
perfect  harmony  is  a  thought,  silent  as  the 
music  of  the  spheres.  If  to  the  cells  of  ani- 
mals and  plants,  the  rounded  pebbles  of  the 
beach,  drops  of  mercury  and  corpuscles  of 
blood,  we  add  Plateau's  beautiful  globules  of 
oil,  we  shall  be  able,  with  these  exquisite 
objects  of  the  sensible  world,  to  constitute  an 
endless  sequence  having  for  limit  the  form  of 
a  perfect  sphere,  but  the  sphere  is  not  a 
thing  in  the  realm  of  sense,  it  is  a  concept, 
a  thought  dwelling  apart  upon  the  over- 
arching border.  It  is  needless  to  cite  further 
examples ;  their  number  is  as  the  sands  of  the 
sea.    They  bear  in  combination  overwhelming 


64  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

witness  to  the  fact  that  the  field  of  what  is 
rational,  the  realm  of  concept  and  logic,  the 
domain  of  Reason,  is  fundamentally,  in  the 
sense  of  the  terms  already  made  clear,  the 
great  limit,  ideal  or  border  of  the  subrational 
domain  and  basal  zone  of  Sense. 

What  of  it?  I  shall  answer  at  once,  for 
I  do  not  intend  to  pause  here  in  order  to 
show  how  the  same  scheme  of  things  obtains 
also  within  the  rational  domain  itself,  finding 
infinite  illustration  there  in  and  among  its 
countless  subdivisions  or  subdomains.  Pro- 
ceeding at  once  to  my  thesis,  I  maintain  that, 
just  as  with  respect  to  the  subrational  do- 
main of  sense,  the  rational  domain  is  a 
limit,  ideal  and  overworld,  so  we  may  find 
in  the  rational  realm  itself  clear  and  ubi- 
quitous evidence  of  the  existence  aloft 
of  a  realm  superrational,  the  limit,  ideal 
and  overworld  to  the  world  of  reason.  The 
thesis  obliges  us  to  produce  in  the  world  of 
logical  thought  rational  sequences  that,  by 
the  law  of  their  formation  and  progress, 
approach  and  betray  as  a  border-domain  a 
region  of  reality  from  which  the  dominion  of 
logic  is  forever  barred.  The  obligation  is 
not  difficult  to  discharge.     The  notion,  for 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  65 

example,  of  what  is  called  a  class  of  things 
lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  logic,  being 
literally  omnipresent  in  the  realm  of  reason. 
Nothing  can  be  easier,  nothing  indeed  is 
more  common  or  familiar,  than  to  form  in 
thought  a  sequence  or  series  composed  of 
more  and  more  comprehensive  classes,  and 
having  for  limit  the  entire  universe  of 
things.  Now,  it  is  easy  to  show  that 
this  limit,  this  vast  ideal,  the  universe 
regarded  as  a  class  of  all  things,  does  not 
belong  to  the  content  of  the  rational  domain. 
For  one  thing,  such  a  class  would  have  to 
include  itself  as  a  member  of  itself,  a  phe- 
nomenon that  cannot  occur  under  the  reign 
of  familiar  logic.  Indeed,  if  we  attempt  to 
apply  syllogistic  process  to  the  universe  as 
an  all-inclusive  class,  we  are  immediately  led 
into  the  flattest  contradiction.  Let  it  be 
tried.  Let  us  say  that  the  universe  U  is  the 
class  of  all  classes.  Then  to  say  that  a 
class  C  is  a  member  of  U  is  to  say  that  C  is 
a  U'  (as  we  say,  for  example,  that  Socrates 
is  a  man).  Now  to  say  that  a  class  x  is  a.  U 
implies  that  x  is  not  an  x,  since  a  class  is  not 
a  member  of  itself.  Hence  to  say  that  U 
is   a   U — that  the  universe  is   a  universe — 


66  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

implies  that  U  is  not  a  U — that  the  universe 
is  not  a  universe:  an  absurdity  exquisite 
enough  for  the  most  fastidious  and  plain 
enough  for  the  most  obtuse.  Here,  then,  we 
have  a  sequence  composed  of  rational  terms 
(classes  that  are  amenable  to  the  processes 
of  logic),  a  sequence  traversing  the  domain 
of  reason  and  indicating  a  limit  on  the 
border,  an  ideal  belonging  to  an  overworld. 
It  is  futile  to  deny  the  limit's  existence.  That 
there  is  a  universe  is  a  fact  we  cannot  escape. 
The  statement  of  Lucien  Poincare  that  "we 
know  nothing  of  the  universe  as  a  whole"  is 
quite  true  if  by  "know"  we  mean  know 
rationally.  Yet  the  universe  exists  as  a 
subject  in  the  discourse  of  even  a  Poincare. 
Essentially  the  same  result  will  follow  if, 
instead  of  the  notion  of  Class,  we  deal  with 
the  other  great  fundamentals  in  logic  and 
reason.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  Propositions 
and  Relations.  Every  one  knows  that  the 
joint  affirmation  of  two  or  more  propositions 
is  an  additional  proposition.  Let  us  now 
think  of  a  sequence  of  joint  affirmations 
becoming  ever  more  and  more  inclusive  in 
such  a  way  that  the  indicated  limit  of  the 
sequence  will  be  the  joint  affirmation  of  all 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  67 

propositions  whatsoever.  It  is  obvious  that 
the  limit  indicated  by  such  a  sequence  of 
rational  terms  does  not  fall  within  the 
rational  domain  but  is  something  beyond, 
for,  within  the  domain,  the  joint  assertion 
of  two  or  more  propositions  is  a  new  proposi- 
tion, whilst  the  limit,  in  affirming  simultane- 
ously all  propositions,  must  at  the  same  time 
affirm  itself.  The  situation,  in  technical 
speech,  is  this:  within  the  range  of  the 
rational,  the  logical  sum  of  two  or  more 
propositions  is  a  new  proposition,  con- 
stituted by  the  sum  but  not  contained 
in  it,  whilst  the  sequence  of  such  sums 
has  for  limit,  out  upon  the  rim  of  the  range, 
a  superlogical  sum,  a  sum  that,  in  embracing 
at  once  all  propositions,  must  embrace  itself. 
I  need  not  tarry  to  show  that  a  like  super- 
rational  phenomenon  is  in  similar  manner 
betrayed  in  the  rational  theory  of  relations. 
That  the  Rational  implies  and  reveals  the 
Superrational,  that  rational  processes  in- 
volve and  intimate  a  region  of  reality  beyond 
their  range,  is  thus  evident  in  the  most 
central  matters  of  logical  thought,  in  those 
primal  concerns  where  the  light  of  reason  is 
clear  and  cold  and  steady  and  dry.     We  are 


68  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

far  from  being-  compelled,  however,  to  depend 
solely  upon  evidence  so  austere  and  chill.  The 
domain  of  reason  is  thronged  with  phenomena 
bearing  confirmatory  witness  of  a  warmer 
kind.  We  familiarly  speak  of  rational 
knowledge,  for  example,  as  having  a  kind  of 
extent,  and,  by  way  of  measure,  we  commonly 
figure  it  to  ourselves  as  enclosed  in  a  circle 
or  a  sphere.  There  is  no  better  way,  for 
all  our  thinking  is,  in  last  analysis,  in  expres- 
sion at  all  events,  metaphorical,  symbolic, 
diagrammatic.  We  think  of  such  spheres  as 
theoretically  ever  increasing  in  size,  in  vol- 
ume, forming  thus  an  endless  sequence  of 
ever  larger  and  larger  spheres  of  potential 
knowledge,  the  assumed  law  of  expansion 
being  such  that  the  sequence's  limit,  the 
implication  of  the  law,  the  ideal  indicated 
by  it  and  forever  pursued,  is  Omniscience. 
Omniscience,  however,  is  obviously  not  one  of 
the  spheres  of  the  sequence.  These  spheres 
are,  each  of  them,  immersed  in  ignorance, 
enveloped  by  the  unknown,  each  of  them  is 
as  a  globe  of  light  surrounded  by  darkness, 
each  of  them  is  an  arena  for  the  proper  ac- 
tivity of  concept  and  logic,  the  radius  extends 
and    the    surface    expands    under    stress    of 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  69 

rational  processes  occurring  within.  But 
omniscience  is  not  something  immersed  in 
the  unknown,  it  is  not  a  globe  of  light  shin- 
ing in  the  dark,  it  is  not  an  arena  for  concept 
and  logic.  "Does  God  think?"  asked  the 
Persian  pupil.  The  master  replied:  "Man 
thinks  because  he  does  not  know,  God  knows 
and  so  he  does  not  think."  The  point  is 
obvious :  thinking  implies  the  unknown,  omni- 
science does  not ;  thinking  is  a  perpetual  cam- 
paign for  light,  the  way  of  its  radiant 
march  is  an  endless  course  traversing  the 
domain  of  Reason ;  omniscience,  the  limit,  lies 
beyond;  knowledge  is  rational;  omniscience 
is  superrational :  it  is  knowledge  supernalized, 
the  ineffable  glory  of  an  Overworld. 

For  final  witness,  a  mighty  witness,  to  the 
truth  of  my  thesis  let  me  remind  you  of  the 
superrational  limit  shining  above  the  summit- 
less  scale  of  excellence  so  wonderfully  por- 
trayed by  Plato  in  his  immortal  vision  of 
Beauty  and  Love. 

"These  are  the  lesser  mysteries  of  love, 
into  which  even  you,  Socrates,  may  enter ;  to 
the  greater  and  more  hidden  ones  which  are 
the  crown  of  these,  and  to  which,  if  you 
pursue  them  in  a  right  spirit,  they  will  lead. 


70  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

I  know  not  whether  you  will  be  able  to  attain. 
But  I  will  do  my  utmost  to  inform  you,  and 
do  you  follow  if  you  can.  For  he  who  would 
proceed  aright  in  this  matter  should  begin 
in  youth  to  visit  beautiful  forms ;  and  first,  if 
he  be  guided  by  his  instructor  aright,  to  love 
one  such  form  only — and  of  that  he  should 
create  fair  thoughts ;  and  soon  he  will  himself 
perceive  that  the  beauty  of  one  form  is  akin 
to  the  beauty  of  another ;  and  then  if  beauty 
of  form  in  general  is  his  pursuit,  how  foolish 
would  he  be  not  to  recognize  that  the  beauty 
in  every  form  is  one  and  the  same!  And 
when  he  perceives  this  he  will  abate  his 
violent  love  of  the  one,  which  he  will  despise 
and  deem  a  small  thing,  and  will  become  a 
lover  of  all  beautiful  forms;  in  the  next 
stage  he  will  consider  that  the  beauty  of  the 
mind  is  more  honorable  than  the  beauty  of 
the  outward  form.  So  that  if  a  virtuous 
soul  have  but  a  little  comeliness,  he  will  be 
content  to  love  and  tend  him,  and  will  search 
out  and  bring  to  the  birth  thoughts  which 
may  improve  the  young,  until  he  is  compelled 
to  contemplate  and  see  the  beauty  of  institu- 
tions and  laws,  and  to  understand  that  the 
beauty  of  them  all  is  of  one  family,  and  that 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  71 

personal  beauty  is  a  trifle;  and  after  laws 
and  institutions  he  will  go  on  to  the  sciences, 
that  he  may  see  their  beauty,  being  not  like 
a  servant  in  love  with  one  youth  or  man  or 
institution,  himself  a  slave  mean  and  narrow- 
minded,  but  drawing  toward  and  contemplat- 
ing the  vast  sea  of  beauty,  he  will  create 
many  fair  and  noble  thoughts  and  notions  in 
boundless  love  and  wisdom;  until  on  that 
shore  he  grows  and  waxes  strong,  and  at  last 
the  vision  is  revealed  to  him  of  a  single 
science  of  beauty  everywhere.  To  this  I  will 
proceed;  please  to  give  me  your  very  best 
attention. 

"He  who  has  been  instructed  thus  far  in 
the  things  of  love,  and  who  has  learned  to 
see  the  beautiful  in  due  order  and  succession, 
when  he  comes  toward  the  end*  will  suddenly 
perceive  a  nature  of  wondrous  beauty  (and 
this,  Socrates,  is  the  final  cause  of  all  our 
former  toils) — a  nature  which  in  the  first 
place  is  everlasting,  not  growing  and  decay- 

*  Of  course  there  is  no  "end";  if  Plato  had  known 
and  employed  the  language  of  modern  mathematical 
analysis,  he  would  have  said,  not  "when  he  comes 
toward  the  end,"  but,  as  he  more  and  more 
approaches  the  limit;  for  this  latter  is  plainly  his 
thought. 


72  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

ing,  or  waxing  and  waning;  secondly,  not 
fair  in  one  point  of  view  and  foul  in  another, 
or  at  one  time  or  in  one  relation  or  in  one 
place  fair,  at  another  time  or  in  another 
relation  or  at  another  place  foul,  as  if  fair 
to  some  and  foul  to  others,  or  in  the  likeness 
of  a  face  or  hands  or  any  other  part  of  the 
bodily  frame,  or  in  any  form  of  speech  or 
knowledge,  or  existing  in  any  other  being, 
as  for  example,  in  an  animal,  or  in  heaven, 
or  in  earth,  or  in  any  other  place ;  but  beauty 
absolute,  separate,  simple  and  everlasting, 
which,  without  diminution  and  without  in- 
crease, or  any  change,  is  imparted  to  the 
ever-growing  and  perishing  beauties  of  all 
other  things." 

Such  in  brief  is  the  holy  vision  of  the 
prophetess  of  Mantineia :  a  vision  of  achieve- 
ment unending — wisdom  and  love  mounting 
a  summitless  scale  of  excellence,  level  above 
level  forever,  through  the  world  of  Sense  and 
the  world  of  Reason,  towards  a  perfection 
and  a  glory  Supernal.  For  it  is  evident 
that  beauty  absolute,  separate,  simple,  inva- 
riant and  everlasting,  transcends  alike  the 
stream  of  sense  and  the  established  ways  of 
thought. 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  73 

Finally,  it  requires  but  little  reflection  to 
see  that,  mutatis  mutandis,  we  are  confronted 
by  essentially  the  same  situation  in  all  the 
cardinal  sub-domains  of  the  rational  under- 
standing: whether  it  be  time  that  we  con- 
template, or  power,  or  ubiety,  or  order  and 
law,  or  degrees  of  indetermination,  or  right, 
or  concord,  or  virtue,  or  joy — in  every  cate- 
gory where  the  laws  of  reason  reign  we  find 
that  the  great  process  of  Idealization  points 
aloft  to  some  form  above  the  laws:  we  find 
that — like  the  Class  of  all  Classes,  like  the 
Joint  Affirmation  of  all  Propositions,  like  the 
Logical  Sum  of  all  Relations,  like  Omni- 
science, like  Beauty  absolute — so,  too,  Eter- 
nahty.  Omnipotence,  Omnipresence,  Neces- 
sity or  Fate,  Unconditioned  Freedom  or  Self- 
determination,  Perfect  Justice,  Universal 
Harmony,  the  Goodness  of  God,  Fehcity 
Divine,  and  many  other  supreme  ideals  and 
supreme  perfections  of  rational  experience 
and  thought,  are  all  of  them  forms  of  Being 
absolute,  constituting  an  Overworld,  a  realm 
Superrational.  That  realm  supernal,  flying 
canopy  of  Thought,  far  off  fathomless  sky 
of  the  Rational  spirit,  thus  revealed  as  the 
supreme  implicate  of  Reason  and  Sense,  will 


74  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 

henceforth  ever  as  in  the  past  shed  in  human 
lives,  whether  they  be  schooled  or  unschooled, 
a  mystic  radiance  like  the  "obscure  clarity 
that  falls  from  the  stars."  May  I  in  closing 
summarize  my  thought  in  verse? 

Beneath  the  whole  a  basal  zone: 
Sense  supports  not  Thought  alone. 
For  ways  of  Reason  point  above 
Towards  Perfect  beauty,  wisdom,  love: 

High  and  vast  beyond  compute, 
A  realm  of  Being  absolute. 
Supernal  source  of  lights  that  glow 
In  radiant  tremors  felt  below. 

Reason's  glory  is  in  her  Dream, 
Her  highest  Truth  and  Worth  supreme 
Intimate  and  half  reveal 
What  they  are,  in  what  we  feel. 

Not  in  the  jungles  of  the  mind 
Religion's  well-spring  shall  we  find. 
Not  of  Darkness  is  her  might 
But  of  the  mystery  of  Light. 

Nay,  Thrill  and  Awe  with  Grace  and  Love 
Eternal  flow  from  Founts  above 
The  vale  of  Sense  and  Thought's  confine 
To  make  our  common  life  divine. 


SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  75 

Illusion  all?     How  are  we  blind 
To  deem  illusion  of  the  mind 
The  holy  Light  by  which  we  see, 
The  sheen  of  Ideality: 

The  Light  and  Soul  of  what  we  mean, 
What  is  Felt  in  what  is  seen, 
The  hid  Intent  of  thought,  unfurled. 
The  Glory  of  the  Overworld. 

To  debate  the  "existence"  of  such  a  world 
were  a  vain  dispute.  In  some  sense,  what- 
soever quickens,  lures  and  sustains,  exists. 
Aspiration  is  not  mocked.  Reason's  unat- 
tainable ideals  are  the  light-giving  ^ther 
of  Life.  Therein  is  the  precious  and  abiding 
reality  of  the  Overworld. 


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